


RC #133,316,666 Mission One: Enemy Mine

by SkarmorySilver



Series: Protectors of the Plot Continuum: Response Center #133,316,666 [2]
Category: My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Protectors of the Plot Continuum
Genre: Department of Mary Sues, Mary Sue, Missions Gone Wrong, Original Character(s), PPC Mission, Trans-dimensional hopping, character replacement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 09:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14422236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkarmorySilver/pseuds/SkarmorySilver
Summary: In which opposites don’t quite attract — but still settle their differences in the face of a common cause.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> \- **Copyright Disclaimer:** The PPC and all related property belong to Jay and Acacia. _My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic_ belongs to Hasbro and Lauren Faust. Agent Rayner Blitzkrieg belongs to me, and is based off [Trotsworth](http://trotsworth.deviantart.com/)'s character, Rainbow Blitz. Agent Evangeline von Lilith also belongs to me.  
>  The fic being sporked, ["Let Rise a New Alicorn"](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10790872/1/Let-Rise-a-New-Alicorn), belongs to [LoverofChrist](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/6246667/LoverofChrist), who may kindly keep it.
> 
> \- **Betas:** PoorCynic, Iximaz, and eatpraylove.
> 
> \- **Rating:** T/PG-13 - For a couple of violent scenes, an excess of drama, and several bodily functions Rayner still doesn't want to talk about.
> 
> \- **Original posting date:** December 22, 2014
> 
> \- **Note #1:** This mission takes place in late August, 2014, two months prior to [Falchion and Rashida's transfer to the DF.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VaQoKHdhMvN5S0I8hZX5uY1M8LGBLdd2iOyVgthV-30/edit?pli=1)
> 
> \- **Note #2:** For the upload of this mission to AO3, Rayner's dialogue has been modified to include the speech patterns given to him since 2017.
> 
> \- Original documents:  
> \-- ["When Good Banishments Go Bad"](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YM8HQIxwma-3RdJGJCYD_jhvaajlJMb9Rq2pSSeO5_U/edit?pli=1)  
> \-- ["Enemy Mine"](https://docs.google.com/document/d/15rTWpUkfuB6g1M54CHLRJ8PvvAERWb8JCBKS7slbs8U/edit)

Cover Illustration: [MLP FiM - Mary Sue Factory](https://shadeysix.deviantart.com/art/MLP-FiM-Mary-Sue-Factory-207784982) by [ShadeySix](https://shadeysix.deviantart.com/)

  

> "You may have made it impossible for Shining Armor to perform his spell, but now that you have so foolishly revealed your true self, I can protect my subjects from  _ you _ !"
> 
> — Princess Celestia, _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ S2E26: “A Canterlot Wedding — Part 2” (2012)

 

* * *

 

**Pre-Mission**

 

The past ten months had been a whirlwind of bad luck for Harry Potter. He had faced off against dragons, merpeople, a maze full of monsters and dangerous magic, and the Death Eaters, who had used his blood to resurrect Lord Voldemort. He was in the Hospital Wing, recovering from his ordeal in the aftermath of the Third Task, and right now, he was too tired to move, and even if he had the strength, he couldn’t bring himself to. The weight of what had happened made his arms feel like lead, and his heartbeat seemed to have slowed as the hours felt as though they were going to merge together. If anyone tried to kill him now, there was no way he could defend himself.

For the Ravenclaw fourth-year known as Cho Chang, the timing couldn’t be more perfect.

As she opened the door to the hospital wing, a grin of triumph unfolded across her face. It had been tricky to orchestrate everything she had done so far, that was true. But hey, she was more than capable of doing that now, and if she could get Harry into the Triwizard Tournament without detection…

She pushed that thought to the back of her wicked mind as she stood at the foot of Harry’s bed, lifting the corner of his comforter and stroking a fingernail up his pallid instep. He instinctively pulled his foot under his cover, and lifted his head weakly to look at her.

“Good evening, Sleeping Beauty,” she purred, flashing her perfect white teeth.

“C-Cho?” Harry asked.

“Yes, it’s me. Missed me, Harry?” Her eyes turned a vivid hue of violet upon saying this, with reptilian slits for pupils, and her canines elongated into razor-sharp fangs as she sauntered up the bed.

“I… yes, I did,” he replied, beginning to feel uneasy. “Are you a… vampire or something?”

She laughed harshly. “It’s a little more complicated than that. In a way, I  _ am _ a being who drains the life force of the living. The person whose body I inhabited foolishly traded their soul for my services, and I am more than eager to carry out my master plan on their behalf.”

“Your master plan?”

“Yep. And you’re not going anywhere, either, so I might as well… spoil it for you.”

Her fingernails lengthened into crimson claws, four inches long, sharp and deadly. She pressed the tip of her right index claw to Harry’s throat, not enough to draw blood but still painful.

“You know who convinced Mad-Eye to put your name in the Goblet of Fire? Me. You know who convinced him to tell you about the Firebolt? Me again. And you know who… ‘persuaded’ Cedric to get you to use the prefect’s bathroom? Three guesses, first two don’t count.”

Harry flinched from the pain, the horror of what was coming washing over him like a tidal wave of grief. “Y-you wouldn’t — Cho wouldn’t — ”

“Oh,  _ she  _ wouldn’t, all right,” she grinned, lowering her head over his throat and baring her fangs. “But  _ I _ would.”

There was nothing Harry could do to escape now. He closed his eyes, and waited for the fatal bite.

The door to the hospital wing burst open, and a very strange young man rushed in, looking extremely furious.

“ _ You! _ ” he cried, causing Cho to look up, surprised and highly annoyed.

“Quiet you!” she snapped at him. “Can’t you see I’m starving?”

“So am I,” said the man, his shoulder-length, rainbow-colored hair drenched in a cold sweat. “I am Agent Rayner, and  _ you _ happen to be my entree tonight!”

She whirled to face him, but he raised his wand, thinking hard about the canonical Cho Chang, including her relationship with Harry, her pairing with Cedric, her involvement in Dumbledore’s Army… “ _ Expecto Patronum! _ ”

A shining silver creature erupted out of the tip of his wand, a wild mustang that reared up and whinnied with rage. The fake Cho turned to run, but Rayner’s horse Patronus was faster, and within moments, it had trampled her, sending her sprawling. Where its hooves had struck, her skin began to crack and fade, revealing a hellish red light beneath.

“Cho Chang, a.k.a. Evangeline von Lilith, Lilith, or E.V.L.,” Rayner declared as his target began writhing in agony upon the floor, “By order of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, you are hereby convicted of being a Character Replacement and a Mary Sue on account of  _ way  _ too many charges to list in full. General felonies include replacin’ and assimilatin’  _ at least  _ eight different characters across four different continua, complete and utter disrespect of the Biblical extended canon, turning  _ every single character _ you have replaced into a homicidal maniac with the intention of graphically fuckin’  _ murderin’ _  the main protagonist of each affected continuum, turnin’ more or less  _ everybody _ into whiny, pathetic, snivellin’ morons  _ specifically  _ to give you an excuse to do unspeakable things of  _ so _ many different kinds to them, mutilatin’  _ dozens _ of canonical characters, not to mention outright  _ killin’ _  a few — Medical has been in complete fuckin’ turmoil because of you! — and perpetratin’  _ massive _ distortions of canonical events just to place yourself in a position of power in every fuckin’ continuum you have visited.

“Charges specific to this badfic include replacin’ the characters of Pansy Parkinson and Cho Chang, specifically by havin’ them sell their souls to you so you can use them as proxies for your own purposes, suckin’ the resolve out of everyone who was even named in this fic aside from yourself, orchestratin’ the entirety of Harry’s involvement in the Triwizard Tournament, includin’ somehow managing to cast an Unforgivable Curse on a hyper-paranoid Auror, sexually assaultin’ Cedric Diggory in graphic detail to persuade him to help Harry — and developin’ male private anatomy in the process when the character you have replaced is canonically and unapologetically female — literally losin’ your head due to a poor choice of words  — which ain’t even the first time this has happened to you, by the way —  claimin’ to be a secret child of Lord Voldemort himself (defyin’ canonical logic on every reasonable level in the process), pairin’ yourself with a character from a different canon, to wit the actual religious figure of Satan, gainin’ immortality for no conceivable reason and with no ill consequences, abusin’ the living shit out of the power you have gained from all of the above for no reason other than ‘because you can’, and proclaimin’ to support witch welfare  _ in spite of all that _ . For your information, you glittery piece of shit, gender equality does  **_not equal_ ** _ using sex for fuckin’ dominance! _ ”

Unable to tolerate his direct challenge of her beliefs, the fake Cho screamed with rage, her false skin bursting open with a blast of blood shot red energy; the Suvian color actually sprayed blood all over Rayner’s blue and white pilot’s jacket, vaporizing his Patronus and sending his instinctive need for a feeding frenzy through the roof. Wiping the blood out of his eyes, he managed to get a look at her for a split second. Her dark, shadowy form reared up, becoming hunched, skeletal, and at least nine feet tall. Her face was twisted into a grotesque, twisted parody of the figure she had once inhabited, her once flowing hair billowing like smoke behind her, with a gigantic cheek-less mouth armed with teeth as long and sharp as kitchen knives. Ridged horns sprouted from her joints and forehead, the two largest growing on her shoulders and framing her horrid face. Gigantic, leathery wings sprouted from her back, a cloak of brilliant scarlet, and her hands sprouted foot-long crimson talons that could rip through steel. Rounding this out was a pair of double-jointed, bird-like legs with great crimson claws that would make a  _ Velociraptor  _ green with envy, and a powerful thrashing tail tipped with a cluster of ruby-colored spikes like swords.

Her opponent’s eyes widened in horror as he realized what he had gotten himself into, but a moment later, he bared his own teeth in fury, revealing interlocking, pointed incisors and long dagger-like fangs. “For all of these crimes and  _ so _ many more,” he snorted, “there’s only one thing I have left to say. Soup’s on!”

The ferociously feral feminist ficubus towered over the predatory personified pegasus pony, opening her terrible maw and letting out a bone-chilling, toothy scream of rage that would have frightened off a Ukrainian Ironbelly. But not Rayner — covered in blood and whinnying with fury, he launched himself at her, sinking his own serrated teeth into her haggard neck.

Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, had been tossed onto the floor by the explosive force of E.V.L.’s transformation. He wanted to stop the fight, but he felt uncharacteristically weak and helpless as the horrific scene unfolded before him.

The grappling match lasted exactly ten seconds before her claws seized him round the waist, sinking deep into his flesh. E.V.L. ripped her attacker off of her and tossed him aside like a ragdoll, ignoring the pain of a jagged chunk of flesh being torn from her throat in the process.

“You think you can stop me,  _ pig _ ?” she screeched, glitter leaking from her wound as she staggered to her feet. “By consuming my blood, you have bound yourself to me, and not even death itself can defeat me now! I will use the flames of my dissenters to cook you alive, and soon, all of the worlds shall be  _ mine _ !”

“We’ll see about that,” Rayner growled, one leg broken but his RA still intact. He scrolled through the redial, frantically searching for the address he wanted. “You can take things up with Satan in Cocytus, you insolent Parasprite! And by the way, I’m not a pig. I’m a  _ pony! _ ”

E.V.L. charged at him with a howl of fury, but ran straight into the ring of blue light that appeared in front of him instead. There was an ear-piercing scream from the other side, and Rayner closed the portal with a satisfied smirk.

“Well, that takes care of that,” he said, rising to his feet and letting out a little belch. “Now, to deal with Harry and my leg…”

He silently cursed himself for not convincing the Wroxton brothers to help him out earlier, since they would have been pretty useful in at least incapacitating the Sue prior to execution. But they were already assimilated into canon, so why bother?

An instant after he had finished that thought, however, he felt a searing pain shooting through his right shoulder. Thinking fast, he pulled out his Neuralyzer with his free hand, and closed his eyes before holding it up to Harry.

_ FLASH! _

“None of this happened, Cho Chang never got you into the Triwizard Tournament, you didn’t just see a giant demonic entity show up for no reason, and I was never here. Bye!” Rayner said as fast as he could. While Harry blinked in total confusion, the humanized pony opened up a portal to the Sunflower’s Office and tumbled through.

“Hey, I’m baaaaack!” he waved in mock cheer as he sat up on the Generic Floor, clutching his shoulder in agony. “And those fics have been taken care of as per your — ?!”

The sight that greeted him was not pretty by any stretch of the imagination. A whole crowd of dandelions was surrounding someone that they had bound in chains of soft, glowing white light, which they were holding in their leaves to keep her steady. She was very tall and slender but athletic in build, with wide shoulders and wider hips, leathery wings, horns sprouting from her shoulders, and… no head?! He looked just to the side to see another dandelion holding her severed but still-living head in a large birdcage, with her flowing dark hair billowing like smoke and her amethyst eyes looking terrified for once — no doubt due to the Black Arrow embedded into her right shoulder.

Apparently, E.V.L. had been both right and wrong. Right because her life was indeed bound to his, and wrong because an arrow to her heart would no doubt kill them both.

The Sunflower Official stood at the back of the crowd; Rayner swore he could almost feel the waves of wrath coming from him. (Which would be understandable given the SO’s high-order psychic powers.)

_ Rayner Bowerman Blitzkrieg,  _ he spoke, his telepathy sounding as though he was visibly shaking.  _ Why, for the Glarunging love of Eru and all that is holy, pure, and canonical, is there a Higher-Order Sue-Wraith in my office?! _

Rayner’s face turned white as chalk as he realized that he had dialed the wrong location on the RA at the worst possible time. Meanwhile, E.V.L. had lost all of her facial color as well, having heard the infuriated tone of the Flower clear as day.

Up to this point, the agent and the Sue had lived in completely different worlds. But in that instant, both of them thought the exact same thing:

_ I… am  _ **so** _ screwed. _

 

* * *

 

 

_ The next day... _

 

It was a typical day for RC #133,316,666. Well, about as typical as it gets at the PPC, anyway.

This particular response center had been lovingly dubbed “The Hellhole” — not for its overall quality, to be fair, but rather due to its ID number being identical to the number of demons in existence according to 15th century theologian Alfonso de Spina. Nonetheless, the sole living agent who resided within its walls had been frowned upon by fortune as of late. Whenever asked by other agents about why he had had to stay in Medical and FicPsych for the past two months, however, he always told them to “buck off.” And his new partner certainly wasn’t helping matters either — especially since she had broken his leg the previous day.

If a Mary Sue was allowed through the halls of the PPC, it was usually because she was reformed. This was only a borderline case for Evangeline von Lilith, a.k.a. E.V.L. To her, the PPC was essentially a prison… a dreary, featureless, and  _ boring  _ prison. She wasn’t thrilled to be bound by canon and forced into labor for the organization that had initially intended to kill her, and the feeling was completely mutual. It had taken the Sunflower Official four hours to stop angrily lecturing Rayner for completely ruining the previous mission, complicating what should have been a simple matter, and above all, forgetting to notify HQ about an emergency situation.

No wonder nobody else bothered to even look in their direction as they trekked together through the halls of the Department of Mary Sues, Rayner’s leg cast giving him a noticeable limp. The two of them were now stuck with each other, bound by life force and the decree of the Flowers.

The door to Rayner’s RC opened up with a dull creaking noise, allowing the six-foot-three, rather curvaceous ex-ficubus to stare into his residence for the first time. Curled up on his bed was a humanoid figure the size of a toddler, with adult features that looked grotesquely distorted. It looked up as soon as the humanized pegasus flicked on the light, and opened its toothy maw in an unnerving threat display. Rayner hissed in response, baring his own jagged incisors, which sent the creature scurrying off his bed in fright.

“I take it you’re not in a good mood?” asked E.V.L.

“Me? Oh, I’m all sunshine and rainbows!” Rayner grumbled, hobbling up to his bed and flopping onto it. “Yeah, I’m one prancin’ pastel pony!”

A glob of Sar-Plasm landed in E.V.L.’s hair, which somehow got stained despite looking like a cross between smoke and darkness made physical.

“What  _ was _ that thing, anyway?” she asked, scowling in disgust as she headed over to the bathroom to wash her hair.

“Eren Yager the mini-Titan,” Rayner muttered, lying sprawled on his bed with his broken leg propped up on a spare pillow. “Just one of the many souvenirs I’ve picked up while exterminatin’  _ tons _ of road-apples like you!”

“Tch, rude much?” E.V.L. asked, using her bare right foot to turn the shower handle.

“I’m partnered with a buckin’ Mary Sue. What the flying feather did you expect?!”

E.V.L. decided not to respond as she turned the shower on and washed the Sar-Plasm off of her, not even caring that the water soaked her armor, leather, and laces down to the skin. By contrast, the water had no obvious effect on the enchanted, impregnable chains of canon binding her to the large book dangling over the edge of the tub.

A few moments later, she stepped out of the shower, trying in vain to wipe her large, long feet off on the leathery cover of said book. She glanced down at the title, and raised an eyebrow. “ _ The Divine Comedy _ ?”

“We were gonna use Milton’s  _ Paradise Lost _ , but Dante Alighieri’s work was older and arguably more famous,” Rayner explained from the main room, sinking listlessly into his turquoise mattress. “Ugh, if you’re gonna stick with bein’ from the depths of Hell, you should at least abide by some of the best-known sources for demonology, for Celestia’s sake!”

E.V.L. concentrated on lifting the book, and a pair of clawed hands, made of the same dark substance as her hair, emerged from her shadow. They awkwardly picked it up for her to examine, her expression betraying mild interest in spite of herself.

“I’d actually like to give this book a read,” she said, opening it up and flipping through the pages of slightly soggy parchment. “It would be interesting to know the organization of Hell — I didn’t get to visit most of it while I was a free being.”

**[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!!]**

Taken completely by surprise, her shadow-claws winked out of existence, and per the Narrative Laws of Comedy, the heavy book landed on her right foot, corner-first. She yelped in surprise and pain, her head spinning frantically about like a propeller as she tried to locate the source of the noise. “What in Cocytus — ?!”

“That would be the console,” said Rayner, covering his face with both hands. “Get that for me, will you? I’m bucking tired and my foot cast itches like crazy. What do they  _ put _ in these bandages, anyway?”

E.V.L.’s head slowed to a stop and, feeling slightly dizzy, she limped out of the bathroom, still dripping wet and trailing puddles on the Generic Floor. “I cannot answer that,” she growled, “but Medical was not exactly kind to my shoulder either after they got that Black Arrow out of there. Wherever that was from.”

Pulling up a chair with her good foot, she sat down, pushed the big red button with the tip of her scaly, snake-like tail, and kicked her feet up onto the desk as the report appeared on the screen.

Rayner could only glower at the ceiling, silently cursing all the rotten luck that had been sent his way. His new partner was the last person he’d wanted for the role, the SO was mad at him, and his leg was broken and wouldn’t heal anytime soon. He closed his magenta eyes in reminiscence of the previous time the latter had happened to him, after a particularly harrowing mission in  _ The Matrix _ continuum involving a Warrior!Sue, several pairs of broken sunglasses, bullet time gone haywire, and a plastic spoon. His previous partner, a Charizard gijinka named Nicholas Abby, was a lot more sympathetic towards Rayner in the aftermath of that mission, as he had been provoked that time, though he did have some fun at his partner’s expense more than a few times with the help of a recurring itch in the latter’s size 12 foot and a plastic fork swiped from the Cafeteria. Rayner made a point to avoid breaking his legs a second time after he got the cast off, and he could never look at forks the same way again.

Thinking about that particular incident made Rayner think about his late partner in general, tears already welling up in the corner of his eyes. He missed Nick more than ever now. At least  _ he _ could be considered a genuine friend, despite the frequent rough moments they’d shared. E.V.L., on the other hand…

While her partner was lost in thought, the bound ex-ficubus skimmed through the report on the console a second time to make sure she was reading correctly. She raised an eyebrow in bewilderment. “Hmm… I am supposedly a demonic entity from the ninth circle of Hell, and even  _ I  _ know that something doesn’t add up here. You don’t just fall through a mirror and into another world. For Heaven’s sake, you don’t even fall through a mirror without getting glass shards in uncomfortable places.”

Rayner didn’t respond. Upon noticing this, E.V.L. swung her legs off the table, stood up, and turned to her partner, using the shadow hand to take off her own head like a hat before balancing it upside down on the tip of her tail. “Look, I don’t care about how much your life sucks right now — we have a mission on our hands, and even if we hate each other’s guts, I still need to know how you idiots do things around here. At least  _ you _ aren’t bound by canon and forced into slave labor.”

Rayner growled and chucked his pillow aside, narrowly missing Eren Yager, and folded his arms and turned his head away with a groan of frustration, ignoring both the sight of his partner rolling her severed head across her tail like a basketball and Eren Yager returning his pillow. “It’s  _ not  _ slave labor!” he fumed. “I just can’t believe it. Not only have my last few missions been a slew of repeated disasters, but my new partner is so annoyin’, it’s a wonder those  _ featherheads _ from Upstairs honestly believe that we even deserve to work together.”

“So… I guess that’s a no?”

“Of  _ course _ it’s a no!” He threw his hands up out of understandable frustration. “And the Sunflower Official expects us to report to ’im in person once we’ve completed an assignment together! Ugh, I want to believe that things can’t get any worse, but I just  _ know  _ the Ironic Overpower will drop an alicorn-Sue into my home continuum the moment I say it.”

E.V.L.’s head dropped to the floor with a  _ thunk _ , giving her a momentary headache, and stayed there for one awkward moment. “Well, about that…”

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and glared at her with fury once again. “It’s already done so, hasn’t it?”

“Not  _ immediately _ , no,” she replied, flicking her head into the air with her foot and playing a short game of hacky sack with it as she watched Rayner stand up shakily and head over to the closet. “The main OC of this fic is actually human, but gets taken to this place called Equestria and involved in this quest about the seventh Element of Harmony, whatever those things are. It takes a while, so it’s not  _ as _ consequential as some of the other cases I’m betting you’ve handled before, but all that buildup is worth it in the end.”

“No, it’s not,” Rayner grumbled, opening the musty storage space and pulling out his assassination gear. “Canonically, there are  _ six  _ Elements of Harmony, no more, no less. And I don’t see  _ how  _ a World One human would know about Equestria without watchin’ the cartoon first!”

“I get the sense that if people  _ do _ watch the show, they’d be able to write better fanfic about it?” E.V.L. asked, kicking her head into the air one last time and catching it with her neck stump.

“Yeah, they would, generally speakin’,” he replied, picking up his Bag of Holding and stuffing the assassination kit inside, along with the urple-covered notebook, Fictionary, C-CAD, Neuralyzer, and RA. “I won’t place any bets on that too quickly, though. So, shall we get prepared for a crash course on Sue-killing?”

“Wait, we’re actually going to  _ kill _ some of the characters in this fic?” E.V.L. asked, picking up a beige-colored cube from Rayner’s desk with her shadow hand.

“If they’re written badly enough to threaten the canon? Yes.”

“But Rayner… Can’t we give them a chance to prove that they  _ won’t _ do that?”

“They’ll blow that chance, no matter what you think! They’re all like that. Every single one.”

“Not all of them,” E.V.L. stated firmly. “I have enough reason to believe that I may be an exception.”

Rayner turned and bared his serrated teeth at her, one hand still programming the disguise generator. “You inflicted serious injuries upon  _ multiple _ canonical characters, messed up the chronology of at least  _ four _ different continua, and tried to buckin’  _ kill  _ me — and you seriously think  _ you’re _ an exception among Mary Sues as an archetype?! Look, E.V.L., my last two months have  _ not _ been pleasant, and I know what you taste like, so I am making a Pinkie Promise in the names of  _ all four  _ princesses when I say that if you don’t play nice today or any other day, I will personally kill us  _ both _ .”

E.V.L. flinched at his last sentence, which was punctuated by Rayner crossing his heart and touching his eyelid.

Rayner returned to programming disguises for both of them. “Anyway, since this takes place primarily in Equestria, I can go in as a pegasus. I’m thinkin’ of a changeling disguise for you, but I’m not sure whether to trust you with shapeshiftin’ abilities after yesterday.”

Her face brightened just a little. “I think that could work. An enemy species wouldn’t be as out of place as an allied one while getting rid of a Sue. So, does this mean I get to keep my awe-inspiring demonic abilities of destruction?”

“No.”

“Can I at least change into a double-horned bat-alicorn, just in case?”

“ _ No. _ ”

She paused a little, watching as Rayner pushed the silver button on the console and opened up a blue ring of light in the middle of the RC. “...Thestral, maybe?”

He slung his bag around his shoulder and stomped hard on her good foot.

“I take it that means ‘no’ as well,” she squeaked in pain.

“Shut the buck up.”

 

* * *

 

**Act One**

Soundtrack:

      * [MelodicPony — “The Return of Harmony Orchestral Suite”](http://youtu.be/IbhqJYINfWs)
      * [MelodicPony — “Princess Twilight Orchestral Suite”](http://youtu.be/ulCF77j_kS0)



The agent and the imprisoned Sue-demon emerged into a blank, generic space. E.V.L. still fiddled around with the beige cube, but this time it was surrounded by a sickly green aura, which also surrounded her shiny, curved horn. In general, she looked like a cross between a unicorn and a beetle, with a jet-black carapace, translucent teal-colored wings, light blue compound eyes, protruding fangs, and holes in all four of her legs.

Rayner’s disguise, meanwhile, had rendered him as a pegasus stallion, similar to a male version of Rainbow Dash. His coat and wings were sky blue, and his colorful mane was styled in a spiky mullet like a rock star, with a tail to match. There were three key differences, however: first, his lower legs and facial mask were a darker shade of blue, comparable to a blue dun or grullo pattern; second, his cutie mark was a tri-colored lightning bolt and a spork, crossed as though on a coat of arms; and third, his teeth were sharp and pointed, more like a grizzly bear’s or a tiger’s than a pony’s.

No sooner had they stepped into the fic when a weird voice echoed around them.

> **Hey guys! First fanfic on this site and first MLP story, yay! I'm a bit of a pegisister (or however you spell the female word for brony, lol.) Well, enjoy! Please review and let me know how I can improve! Feel free to message me here too. :)**

“Ugh, I should’ve known,” Rayner muttered sourly, pressing a hoof to the bridge of his snout. The shank of his left hind leg was bandaged, and he stepped forward with a slight limp. “Mary Sues are always a problem for first-time authors.  _ Always. _ ”

“That was an Author’s Note, wasn’t it?” asked E.V.L. Her disguise made her voice buzz a lot more than usual.

“Yep. Howd’jya guess?”

“I was involved in quite a few in my homefic. I thought you’d have remembered.”

“ _ Ohhhhhh _ .”

He glanced up into space, his eyes staring at nothing, and then he gasped. “Crap, I forgot the crash-test dummy! Didja bring one? It’s supposed to be some kind of beige cube…”

E.V.L. looked at the one she was holding. “You mean this one?”

“Yep, that’s it!” Rayner said hastily, yanking the cord sticking out of it with his teeth and swatting it away from her with his front hoof. The cube expanded like a balloon, taking on the shape of a person. A moment later, it suddenly stood upright and began to speak.

> **I surveyed the ashes of my home, clutching my backpack, which held the only things I had left—five necklaces and a crown. They were relics of my childhood.**
> 
> **Long before the fire that had destroyed my home, I had loved to play on the banks of the river that ran outside our backyard. I had found all sorts of interesting trinkets that had washed up from other kids who played at the river. But these pieces of jewelry were by far the most intriguing. They seemed to be made out of real metal, with colorful stones that sparkled and shimmered like sunbeams. Each stone had a different color and a different shape. Sometimes as a child, I would put on the crown (which was a bit small on me) and admire my reflection in the mirror. The crown had been my favorite. That was why I had never told anyone of it. I had shown my big sister the first necklace I found—one with a blue balloon-shaped stone—and she told me it was probably a party favor from the birthday party another girl had had the week before. I didn't believe her but she was convinced. Ever since then I kept the other necklaces hidden, and I didn't dare mention the crown.**
> 
> **I opened the backpack and gazed sorrowfully at the sparkling beauty inside it. I would have to sell those jewels. I needed money so badly. Surely I could give up my childhood playthings in exchange for enough money to buy a meal.**

The world formed around the two agents, and the remains of a house that had just burned down materialized before the agents and the dummy, which suddenly sported a backpack that it promptly looked into. E.V.L. glanced away from the scene just in time to notice that her partner was visibly shaking.

“Those… are  _ not _ … childhood playthings,” he growled through clenched fangs. “Those are  _ the applebuckin' Elements of Harmony! _ You can’t expect to outright  _ sell _ them like trinkets, you ignorant  _ mule! _ ”

There was a  _ poof _ next to him. E.V.L. had changed into a black-coated hybrid of a donkey and a horse.

“But she isn’t aware of them being the Elements, though,” she brayed. “Why bother charging for that if she simply doesn’t know better?”

“Much as I’d hate to agree with you, I guess you’re right,” Rayner sighed, rolling his pink eyes with an embittered pout. “And no offense regarding the mule bit. I should’ve used ‘Sue’ instead.”

“None taken for the mule part,” E.V.L. snorted back, before returning to her changeling form and continuing, “But every bit of offense taken for calling her a Sue.”

“You really are enjoyin’ this, aren’tcha?” her partner fumed as they trotted their way towards  **the local pawn store.**

“Of course,” she replied snidely. “I can’t use any shape-shifting powers at HQ for obvious reasons, so I might as well milk this mission for all it’s worth.”

Rayner glared at her for the umpteenth time. “You  _ do _ realize that once we get to Equestria, your being a changeling will undoubtedly scare the horse-apples outta everybody. Right?”

“Absolutely. Why?”

“Because that’s the  _ last _ thing we want on this mission, that’s why.”

“But I  _ want _ the ponies to fear me. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, right?”

“No, it  _ isn’t. _ ”

“What’s the point of being a changeling if you can’t scare ponies?”

“The  _ point _ , E.V.L., is to  _ blend the buck in _ . Do  _ you _ see any batpegacorns waltzing around Ponyville, huh? Didn’t think so. If you want to properly observe a Mary Sue, you hafta make sure she doesn’t notice you!”

“I can take her on without even trying. Just watch me.”

Rayner pressed a hoof to his forehead. “Count yourself lucky that we’re not allowed to kill each other anymore.”

> **I stopped in front of a full-length oval-shaped mirror roped off in a corner. A sign taped to its frame read "NOT FOR SALE: DO NOT TOUCH".**
> 
> **I looked closer and realized to my surprise it didn't seem to be doing what a mirror normally does. I mean, it wasn't reflecting me. I could see the image of what looked like a village at night beneath a sky filled with twinkling stars. I would have thought it was a painting, but the whole image was too shiny for that. Maybe a movie screen that just looked like a mirror?**
> 
> **Glancing around, I ducked under the ropes until I stood right in front of the mirror. I wanted a closer look. And boy, did I get one.**
> 
> **I tripped over my shoelace, which had somehow come untied, and fell into the mirror. And when I say into, I mean straight through.**

As soon as the Sue melted through the strange mirror, the two agents were suddenly yanked into  **a swirling purple maelstrom** . Rayner instinctively took flight, with E.V.L. attempting to imitate him with little success.

A moment later, the disguised demoness remembered that she was part-insect and started flapping her wings as hard and fast as she could. It worked, sort of. Her landing was more awkward than his as both she and the dummy hit some kind of solid surface, the latter of course taking the harder fall for lack of any usable wings.

The moment the dummy hit the generic floor, the purple storm instantly vanished, replaced by a black void in a manner not unlike someone switching off a television.

“Aaaand that’s the end of the first chapter,” said Rayner, floating down to meet his partner. “Now, let’s see what the canons think of the Sue turning up in Ponyville.”

Having landed with enough force that her legs gave out under her, E.V.L. picked herself up. Unfortunately for her dignity, she promptly began slipping and wobbling on the smooth, generic surface as the scenery began to change once again.

> **Wow, that was quick! Two reviews within hours of the first chapter, both asking for more! :D So here you go! This is a much longer chapter than the first. I'll try to make them as long as possible. Enjoy and thanks for reading! Please fav, follow, and review for more! ;)**

“Ow ow ow,” Rayner grumbled, tapping his temple with his hoof to clear the Author’s Note from his head. “I hate how most fanfic websites don’t allow you to put those things in a separate section.”

“There’s at least one website that does that. DeviantART, I think it’s called?”

“Yeah, but most of the material there is either damn good art, teenagers being douchebags, or fetishes of every kind you could possibly imagine. And yes, I speak from personal experience and on behalf of my author.”

E.V.L. decided not to pose the obvious question about how that community treated Rayner’s home continuum, since she had a good guess as to how he’d respond to that one.

> **Just then footsteps came up the staircase. "Oh, good! You're awake!" a young woman's voice said cheerfully.**
> 
> **It was the source of that voice that caught me off guard.**
> 
> **She—or it, I couldn't quite tell—was a small purple horse with a unicorn horn in the middle of her forehead. Her dark purple mane and tail each had a lavender highlight in the middle. Weirdest of all, purple wings were folded gracefully against her sides. Her big eyes sparkled at me as she looked me over.**
> 
> **I screamed. She/it screamed and jumped back, spreading her wings and hovering slightly off the floor. "Sweet Celestia! Wha—"**
> 
> **"What are you?! Where am I?!" I screamed at her. "What happened?!"**
> 
> **"Well, what are YOU?" she demanded in reply. "You look like a human. Are you?"**
> 
> **That surprised me. "Yes? I'm a girl…I'm nineteen…I fell through a magic mirror (I guess?) and down a purple maelstrom and hit the ground and passed out and here I am?"**
> 
> **The creature seemed to calm a little bit at this. "And you're alive? You can talk?"**

The agents looked around to see that they were now inside a familiar-looking library, specifically the bedroom of said library. “Enter Twilight Sparkle from stage right,” Rayner commented, right before grabbing his partner and flying her into one of the recesses in the bedroom wall.

The canon and the dummy then exchanged some dialogue, during which the latter revealed her name:  **Tara Swift.**

Rayner actually had to press his hoof to his mouth to keep from laughing.

“I knew it,” Rayner nickered as soon as he could speak coherently. “I buckin’  _ knew _ it! She  _ would _ name her OC after one of the voice actresses from the show — and the one who voices the  _ main character _ , no less.”

“Don’t forget a surname that was likely ganked from one of the most popular singers of World One,” E.V.L. added, wishing she could roll her eyes. “Original, isn’t it?”

“Completely and totally,” Rayner replied in the same tone. “Ah well. At least this Sue  _ has  _ a name of some sort.”

The Sue showed Twilight her jewelry, which was identified as exactly what the agents expected.

“If there was any doubt about the Sue stealing these ‘Elements of Harmony’ from their home world just for the sake of a plot device, even accidentally… well, it’s gone now,” E.V.L. whispered.

After an explanation about what the Elements were, Twilight rushed out to invite her friends to meet the Sue. Rayner decided to lounge on his stomach for a while, opening up his (saddle-)Bag of Holding with his wing and letting his partner magically levitate the urple notebook and pen out of it, the RA and the Fictionary (which now looked like the  _ Elements of Harmony _ book from the very first scene of the show) following close behind. “All right, E.V.L. Before we skip to the next scene, how many things’ve you found so far that are wrong with this picture?”

“Let’s see…” she replied, magically flipping through the pages of the Fictionary. “Using a tragic accident to initiate a plot device — to wit, unknowingly stealing the Elements of Harmony and attempting to sell them as World One jewelry — being transported to Equestria via a means straight out of  _ Through the Looking Glass  _ (not to mention set in World One and given no plausible explanation), and having an uncreative name. Did I miss anything?”

“Trippin’ over a shoelace just to initiate the main storyline. Like so many other things, it seems contrived enough to be charge-worthy. Other than that… eh, not much.”

“Ah, gotcha.”

“Not to tempt the Ironic Overpower, but you’re actin’ awfully nice tonight. For one thing, I’m surprised you haven’t tried to kill me yet. Again.”

She flashed a menacing fanged snarl at him. “Don’t get your hopes up, though. I can still shape-shift, after all.”

Rayner groaned, pressing a forehoof to his snout as he dialed the RA to take them to the next few hours. “I should be so lucky.”

> **After a couple of hours I heard the door downstairs open and what sounded like a pogo stick come bounding into the house. "Hi up there, Twilight's new friend!" a high-pitched voice exclaimed excitedly. "She says you don't have any hooves but I think she's just joking because practically everyone in Equestria has hooves and—"**
> 
> **By this point I had made it to the top of the staircase and saw that the one chattering was a pink pony with a bushy mane and tail. When she saw me she stopped talking and screamed, jumping off the floor. "SHE WAS RIGHT!"**
> 
> **"Oh, Pinkie, I'm sure there's a rational explanation," interrupted a voice with a country drawl as an orange pony with a blond mane and a brown fedora followed her in. This second pony saw me too and halted in mid step. "What in tarnation?!"**
> 
> **"You must be Applejack and Pinkie Pie," I ventured hesitantly, remembering Twilight's descriptions.**
> 
> **Pinkie screamed. "SHE CAN TALK!" And out the door she went in a pink blur.**
> 
> **"Sorry 'bout that," Applejack apologized for the hyperactive pony. "You're right, I'm Applejack. And who 're you?"**
> 
> **"My name is Tara," I replied as I walked down the stairs.**
> 
> **"Well, it's a pleasure, Miss Tara," Applejack smiled. "I know the others will be real happy to meet you."**

A moment later, Twilight and the other members of the so-called ‘Mane Cast’ — to wit, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy, in that order — followed behind the first two. Rayner couldn’t help but smile to himself as the sky-blue female pegasus  **plopped into a chair.** “I wonder how she’d feel if she saw me right now.”

“What’s so important about her?” E.V.L. asked. “Were you two related in whatever work you were spawned in?”

“Well, put it this way… Have you ever read Connor Cogsworth’s ‘On A Cross and Arrow’? It’s basically a goodfic in the MLP continuum involving the Mane Six meeting genderswapped versions of themselves, which in turn were based off the works of Trotsworth on deviantART. Rainbow Dash’s male counterpart is Rainbow Blitz.”

The disguised ex-ficubus raised an eyebrow. “And you’re the same pony?”

“Well, no, not entirely. A  _ lotta  _ derivative works were spawned by both the fic and the artwork that inspired it, includin’ humanizations. This one guy named Shadow-Aspect got the idea to make a gijinka version of Rainbow Blitz for a fanfic he was writing. I won’t go into the specific details, but it was an AU version of a certain legendary badfic involvin’ genderbent human versions of Dashie and Pinkie o’er yonder. And yes, there would’ve been slash romance, anatomically incorrect sex, and a  _ ton  _ of kinks involved.”

It took E.V.L. a moment to understand where he was going with this. “Did those particular characters get different names?”

“Yep,” Rayner replied with a grim scowl. “Male!Pinkie Pie, or Bubble Berry, was renamed to Bobbyswaine DaVinci Baretta. Three guesses as to what the human name of Rainbow Blitz was, and the first two don’t count.”

She didn’t need to answer that question. Instead, she posed another one. “What happened to the fic?”

“As far as I know, the author never even got around to writing it. He had a lotta stupid ideas back then, and he threw most of them away after a while. So now you know how I ended up in the PPC.”

“Sounds like you had a fun time back in the day.”

“If you’re being sarcastic, quite the contrary. It was my author who got the short straw for bein’ a huge douchebag when I was still a badfic character. If anything, my history with the PPC is a lot more horrific, and it’s not something I’d like to talk about.”

“Sooner or later, that matter is  _ bound _ to come up, and we both know that,” E.V.L. said flatly. “I may even ask about it now just to piss you off.”

Rayner snorted angrily. “Let’s just get to the next chapter already. Or skip to Chapter Four if there isn’t anything of — GUH!”

So busy had the two of them been with their conversation that they had completely missed the in-text author’s note ( **Author's note: references to Equestria Girls and Rainbow Rocks here. :P** ), at least until it had conked Rayner upside the head. That brought their attention back to the fic, just in time for the two of them to catch a critical detail.

“Is the fic implyin’ that… Tara’s home world is the  _ Equestria Girls  _ sub-continuum?!” Rayner almost yelled, rubbing the bruise where the author’s note had hit him.

“Well, that explains the mirror back in Chapter 1,” replied E.V.L., flipping through the pages of the Fictionary until she got to the right section. “According to the part about unofficial MLP spinoffs, it’s probably the same one that Twilight used in that special.”

“Celestia’s mane,” Rayner cursed. “I expected this to be a typical crossover with World One, but  _ this… _ ”

“On the plus side, at least we won’t have to charge for the mirror portal anymore, dropping a World One human into Equestria without context, or for trying to sell the Elements off.”

“But they’re the  _ Elements of applebuckin’ Harmony! _ ” Rayner argued. “And according to the Words, the canons are now gettin’ the (completely preposterous and charge-worthy) feelin’ that there may be a  _ seventh! _ ”

“There’s a massive time distortion as well,” E.V.L. continued as though she hadn’t heard him. “Two weeks in Equestria means fourteen years in the  _ Equestria Girls _ world? According to the paragraph on Twilight’s canonical visit to the latter, that simply isn’t true.”

> **I specifically looked up Friendship is Magic on YouTube to make sure I got the ponies' talking styles right. Hopefully I did. :P Thanks for reading! :D**

This Author’s Note sounded fairly normal, but it still hurt just a little. “To be honest, the author probably did,” said E.V.L. “I don’t see anything glaringly wrong with any of their personalities here if the Fictionary is to be believed.”

“Whatever happens from here on out,” Rayner growled through bared teeth, “whomever the seventh Element becomes associated with this time is gonna suffer the same fate as the rest of ’em.”

“It’s not because of  _ Equestria Girls _ being involved, isn’t it?”

“I’m in no place to judge that special or its AU. But even if she isn’t as bad as other Sues I’ve dealt with, present company absolutely included, Tara  _ still  _ gets more than a few things wrong. For one thing, we  _ still _ don’t know what she even  _ looks _ like!”

Indeed, the crash-test dummy had no specifically defined features — no eye color, hair, or even clothes.

“How odd. She should be indescribably gorgeous by now,” said E.V.L., levitating the RA for her partner to see. “Anyway, can we skip the next chapter? From what I’m gathering, it’s just a sleepover and then Twilight heading to Canterlot after failing to find any info about the seventh Element.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t try to drag me through that part just to stall the mission. But we’ll need to see how Twi’s family is doin’, anyway, so I might as well.”

The agents followed the canons and the dummy as they headed off to Canterlot, during which Twilight revealed that Cadance hadn’t left the Crystal Empire because she had spotted King Sombra.

“Sombra’s supposed to be dead by now if the third season premiere is any indicator, so we’re probably dealing with a replacement here,” said E.V.L. as she skimmed through the Fictionary. “Since this takes place during or after the fourth season — Twilight didn’t become an alicorn until the end of Season 3 — this means we’ll  _ finally _ have somebody we can kill. Much as I’d hate to admit this, I don’t see too much wrong with Tara herself, as the seventh Element of Harmony seems more like a blemish upon the canon in general here as opposed to a specific character. Have you dealt with other seventh Elements before?”

“Occasionally,” Rayner replied. “But they seem t’ be specifically related to the main character of the fic. If the Element isn’t granted to Tara, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if another Sue shows up just to be chosen to use it.” Then he noticed Princess Cadance among the gathered ponies, and his eyes widened. If Cadance spotted an undisguised changeling, she would more than likely fire off a magical laser and that would be that.

“Oh,  _ buck _ ,” he swore. “E.V.L., you have to hide!”

“But there’s no hiding spots around — ”

“No, I meant that you have to blend in! You’re a  _ changeling! _ ”

She got it straight away. Sort of. There was a  _ poof _ and next thing Rayner new, he was staring at the black mule from earlier.

“No, not like that,” Rayner hissed frantically at her.

“What then? Something like this?” With another  _ poof _ , she turned into a vampire fruit-bat-pony with a midnight coat and huge, sharp fangs.

“No.”

“Or this?” She changed into a pure white, medieval-looking unicorn with cloven hooves, a tufted tail like an ox, and a curved, spiralling horn.

“ _ No. _ ”

E.V.L. cycled through several more forms in this way: a “nightmare” made of pitch-black sand, a mechanical unicorn with a flowing rainbow-colored mane, a seahorse with a pony for a head, and a creepy-looking baby pony that looked like a wingless version of Rainbow Dash. All of them were met with an increasingly stern yet fearful “no” from Rayner.

Her last form was the most extravagant of them all — an alicorn with a dark black coat, urple zebra-stripes, blellow fetlocks, a dark grold pentagram for a cutie mark, and two equally-sized wilver horns. She had two pairs of wings — one pair feathered like a pegasus, and one pair leathery like a dragon — and her mane and tail were made of crimsun fire.

Rayner’s response to this final appearance was to turn and buck her in the face, sending her flying out of a nearby open window. Before the canons or the dummy could take notice, he had flown out as well, shutting the window behind him and diving into some bushes after her.

E.V.L. had landed flat on her back; before she could get up, her partner had landed and planted all four of his hooves on her chest. He glared into her tanzanite-colored eyes with a towering rage.

“Is this some kind of bucking  _ joke _ to you?!” he whinnied.

“Look, Rayner,” she snorted back, “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t expect my first mission to be this  _ boring.  _ I just wanted to have some harmless fun.”

“Harmless?! I don’t give a flying feather about whether your fun is harmless to you or I — you  _ clearly _ don’t understand the importance of our Duty, nor do you  _ care  _ to understand it!”

“Why should I? The only reason I took up this job is because the Flowers would otherwise lock me up in a hyperspace jail cell for the rest of eternity, and nothing could be more boring than  _ that. _ ”

“So?!”

“It’s just that this is, oh,  _ marginally less boring.  _ At least it is to me. What makes  _ you _ value it so much that you’d actually mind me goofing off every once in a while?!”

“ _ Everything!!! _ ” he neighed furiously. “The  _ entire buckin’ point _ of my job is to make sure people like  _ you _ don’t make such  _ asses _ out of yourselves and fatally disrupt the canon! If people like  _ you _ were free to prance around and trample the intellectual property of actual, bona-fide producers, they won’t be too happy about it!”

E.V.L. paused to consider this. “So, how do I, you know,  _ not _ ruin the canon or this mission?”

“Simple. Don’t act like you’re entitled to do whatever you want, follow the protocol  _ to the letter _ , and never, ever, ever, ever,  _ ever _ piss me off or, Celestia forbid,  _ backstab me _ under any conceivable capacity! Got it? And lose the ridiculous appearance while you’re at it. I can’t stare at your coat without my eyes hurting!”

E.V.L. rolled her eyes with a frustrated sigh, and then changed one last time with another loud  _ poof _ . Where a double-alicorn with four wings once existed, there now lay a tall, blood-red unicorn with a flowing jet black mane and tail, purple eyes with narrow pupils, a narrow, curved horn, and a black pentagram for her cutie mark. “How’s this?”

Rayner stepped off of her just so he could repeatedly headbutt a nearby tree until its leaves fell off. “RRRRRGH! Un. Buckin’. Believable!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Act Two**

Soundtrack:

  * [MelodicPony — “Love Conquers All Orchestral Suite”](http://youtu.be/0ViDPWCcwmg)
  * [Evening Star — "To Build an Army"](http://youtu.be/KlPQE_lelG4)



 

> **Suddenly a rumble of thunder came from outside. Applejack looked at Rainbow Dash in irritation. "What is it with you Pegasus ponies and thunderstorms this week?"**
> 
> **"That can't be the Pegasusi," Rainbow replied, puzzled. She flew to the window and peered out. Almost immediately she drew back in a panic. "Uh, girls? Princesses? Big trouble."**
> 
> **"If you think that big cloud out there is dark magic, it's a thundercloud," Luna remarked dryly.**
> 
> **"Then why are all those Pegasi attacking it?!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.**
> 
> **"Uh-oh," Twilight murmured.**
> 
> **Celestia looked grave. "Rainbow Dash is right. That is no thunderstorm."**

The two agents looked around at the dark cloud, which shot out  **red sparks of electricity or magic, I couldn’t tell which,** in random directions as the Generic Pegasi kept attacking. They knew something was wrong almost immediately. Then they noticed something else — another cloud, much closer this time, and made of a pink, sticky substance.

Sitting upon the cloud was a little creature with the head of a pony and a serpentine body comprised of the parts of various other animals.

E.V.L. stood up for the first time since Rayner had kicked her out the window. “All right… I know the dark cloud in the distance must be Sombra, but can you care to explain what that candy cloud is? Or the creature sitting in it?”

“That,” explained Rayner, “would be the first mini we’ve encountered today. A mini is created when a name is misspelled in a badfic — in this case, the name of a species or more precisely, a species plural. It’s ‘Pegasi’, not ‘Pegasusi’, you idiot!” he called up to the sky, as though hoping the author was listening.

“So, is the mini the cloud or the chimera?” asked E.V.L. The little chimera steered the candy cloud over her head and willed it to dump a rain of chocolate milk into her mane.

“Chimera. Well,  _ draconequus _ , technically. It’s a mini-Discord, derived from the spirit of chaos who first appeared as the villain of the season 2 premiere.”

Pegasusi laughed mischieviously and continued pouring chocolate milk over E.V.L.’s head. In the background, Celestia fired a magical beam at the dark cloud, but it absorbed the energy and, in fact, seemed to leech it from her.

“So, what do we do with this thing?” she asked. “Is he going to make a mess of everything, or…”

“Minis usually don’t mean ill to agents,” said Rayner. “The mini-Discords  _ may _ be a bit of a handful, especially in large numbers, but they’re not as nasty as the real thing. Most minis ain’t as a rule, with one exception.”

“What, a Sue misspelling her own name? Like, say, Evengeline von Lilyth?”

At that moment, a tiny Ficubus sprang out of the bushes and attempted to claw Rayner’s face off. He reared up on his hind legs with a startled whinny, knocking the mini-Sue to the ground with a kick of his front leg, before coming down and clamping his sharp teeth over its head. E.V.L. and Pegasusi watched in morbid fascination as he shook the life out of it and tore it to shreds.

When Rayner had eaten his fill of the mini-Sue and licked the last of the glitter off the ground, he cleaned the dirt off his tongue with his forehoof and gave E.V.L. a  _ very  _ nasty look.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?!” he snorted angrily.

“Hey, I was just asking,” his partner replied in a faux-innocent tone.

“First of all,  _ knock it off, _ before I buck you even harder. And second, to answer your question, yes, mini-Sues are indeed a mini of a different color, and often a lot meaner. Didn’t you see what the one I just ate tried t’ do to me?!”

She rolled her violet eyes at him. “Well, guess that answers that. Can we get back to the badfic now?”

“Ugh, fine. We’re at the point where things get interestin’, anyway.”

The two of them snuck back into the palace the same way they came, with the mini-Discord in tow, just in time to hear the Author’s Note for the next chapter.

> **Here you go Majestic Wren! I really appreciate your amazing reviews. :D Thanks to everyone else who's been following and reviewing too! Hope you enjoy this new chapter! Please continue to review, you have no idea how much it means to me! ;) BTW I decided to go ahead and raise the rating to T, since Twilight will find herself in...a bad situation soon.**

As the Words resumed describing the fic once again, the agents watched as  **The three princesses lit their horns, summoning their magic.** Then, they conjured a glowing orb above Twilight, who absorbed it into her horn with a dramatic sequence akin to a magical girl transformation. The princesses’ cutie marks vanished, as did most of their strength. Then they told the Mane Cast and the Sue to flee, and never look back.

“Is the princesses giving Twilight their magic canonical?” asked E.V.L.

“It is,” said Rayner. “The princesses give their magic to Twilight for safe-keepin’ durin’ the fourth season finale. It doesn’t quite work out — I won’t spoil anything since I know you haven’t watched the show — but I’ll give them credit for tryin’. What’s more worrisome is that Sombra apparently has the same abilities as Tirek, the antagonist of said finale.”

“The magic absorption?”

“According to the Fictionary, Sombra has never had any magic-absorbing abilities in canon. He could change into shadows, present visions of his victims’ worst fears, and use dark magic, but that’s about all we see of him. Which can mean only one thing…”

“C-CAD scan?” E.V.L. magically levitated the device from Rayner’s saddlebag.

“Exactly,” Rayner agreed.

As the dark cloud began enshrouding the castle, E.V.L. pointed the device at it and scanned it. She was not happy to see the reading.

_ [King Sombra. Unicorn male. Character Replacement. There’s never a Crystal Heart when you need one!] _

“So, what do we do with him?” asked E.V.L. “In the form he currently has, he’s too strong, especially with the uncanonical magic stealing. Could he be another ficubus or something similar?”

“The ficubus drains canonical characters of the personality traits that make ’em recognizable,” said Rayner. “Think about the way you turned everyone in the stories you invaded into spineless cowards! That ain’t magic-stealing, ain’t it?”

She thought about it for a moment, and then shook her head. “Whatever the case, we have to do something about this. Isn’t taking over the canon supposed to be  _ my _ job?”

“No. It’s not.”

The agents and the mini-Discord ducked into the palace library after the canons, and watched as Twilight and the Sue tried to find their way out.

> **I pulled one book off the shelf and it fell open to an elaborate two-page drawing. A grassy hill at the bottom held a Pegasus, a unicorn, and an earth pony around its base. On top of the hill were the four alicorn princesses—Celestia, Luna, Cadence, and Twilight. But above them all, hovering with magnificent wings outspread, was the most majestic alicorn of all. Her long, flowing mane bore each color of the Elements of Harmony, and was so perfect and beautiful I couldn't believe such glory had been captured in a drawing. Her hooves were covered by baby pink horseshoes. Her coat seemed to glow silver and gold and white all at once. But her cutie mark really caught my attention.**
> 
> **It was a small cloud divided into six sections—each section was the color of one of the Elements of Harmony.**
> 
> **In the center of the cloud was a broken sword.**

A second mini-Discord, Cadence, promptly poofed into existence next to the agents. Rayner’s knees had begun wobbling, his dark blue face turning red like in a cartoon with steam blowing out of his ears.

“There’s a  _ fifth  _ alicorn!” he sputtered as E.V.L. dragged him off with her magic. “A fifth! Buckin’!  _ Alicorn!!! _ ”

Before the Sue of this fic could notice them, the bound Sue-wraith that was tailing her had yanked her partner and the two minis behind a nearby bookshelf. Tara was promptly distracted by Twilight returning and noticing the book.

“And she looks completely buckin’  _ ridiculous _ , too!” Rayner continued. “Not as dumb as some of your disguise ideas, but come  _ on! _ ”

> **"We can't let Sombra capture the magic I now carry within me," Twilight explained. Finally she set the book down. "And I can't transfer the magic to you. You humans can't bear the power of even one alicorn, let alone four. I'm going to put it in something that we can carry and hide if we must."**
> 
> **"But what spell were you looking for?!" I demanded.**
> 
> **"The magic transfer spell. Starswirl the Bearded wrote that he used his time spell to see what would happen in the distant future—he was only able to go once, but he wrote everything he saw. He foretold my becoming a princess alicorn. But he also foretold a fifth and final alicorn who would rise when Equestria needed her the most. She was not born an alicorn, but when she becomes one, no magic in Equestria can stand against her."**

E.V.L. had to pull a Hal Jordan and trap Rayner inside a magical cage to keep him from trying to smash through the bookshelf and disembowel the Sue with his teeth.

“There never was any mention of  _ how _ many alicorns the world could support at any one time,” the disguised ex-ficubus noted. “So that means this prophecy wouldn’t have been contradicted by anything in the actual canon.”

Rayner started gnawing on one of the bars of the magical cage with his teeth, unable to respond coherently.

Meanwhile, Twilight had opened a secret compartment in the library and taken out a gemstone carving of an alicorn. She started chanting an incantation to seal the magic of the other princesses into the carving.

> **"Oh alicorn of gemstone made,**
> 
> **This I command of thee today.**
> 
> **Bear the magic of the land,**
> 
> **Place the power in her hand.**
> 
> **The Element inside is strong,**
> 
> **For she has borne it all along.**
> 
> **And if she be worthy of thy flame,**
> 
> **Give her hooves and a new name,**
> 
> **Wings to fly, a magic horn,**
> 
> **And let rise a new alicorn.**
> 
> **If she wears thee both out and in,**
> 
> **Then shall the spell ne'er be broken.**
> 
> **This magic I seal thee within."**

There was a disgusting noise from within the cage, and next moment, a glittery puddle of something E.V.L. decided best not to mentally describe splattered onto the floor.

“Interesting that you should drop the title of the badfic, but no points for you, Tara,” E.V.L. sighed, pressing a forehoof to the bridge of her snout. “Dante would have had you condemned to wherever they send people who compose such blasphemous doggerel.”

By the time she had finished that sentence, Not!Sombra’s essence had entered the library, as Tara’s discovery had stalled her and Twilight for too long. The purple alicorn was snatched up and taken away as a slave; the Sue decided to follow them.

Rayner had burned out completely by this point, not to mention emptied his stomach, so E.V.L. decided it best to free him from his magic prison.

“Lemme guess. You’re going to kill this Sue before the fifth alicorn even comes into existence, aren’t you?”

“Damn right I will!” the pegasus fumed. “We can list Tara accidentally bringing about Twilight’s filly-napping as a charge. Of course, we’ll still need to get the opportunity to get her outta the way of the canon. Once that’s done…”

“...it’s chow time,” E.V.L. finished for him.

“Pretty much, yeah. Let’s get to the next chapter and see where they’ve taken Twilight. If anythin’ bad happens to her, Not!Sombra’s next on our redlist.”

“I’d say the same myself,” E.V.L. replied, her expression strangely calm as she opened the next portal. “Watch yourself, Sombra. This badfic ain’t big enough for the two of us.”

> **Slightly darker chapter...my apologies. Will get a little darker in upcoming chapters, but never to an M type of darkness. Little more on Sunset Shimmer and Equestria Girls here too! :P Keep reviewing and thanks for reading!**

“If this dreck contains any M-rated material, I’m gonna dismember somethin’ and use what’s left of it as the secret ingredient in Bubble Berry’s Secret Ingredient Cupcake Recipe,” Rayner grumbled. “Preferably somethin’ glittery.”

Neither E.V.L., Pegasusi, or Cadence had any response to that as they watched Not!Sombra argue with Twilight about how he fared against the Elements of Harmony. Twilight declared that even with the alicorn magic, he still didn’t have her own, and he wouldn’t be truly powerful.

“The Sue should be easy enough to take care of,” said E.V.L. “I’m not so sure about how to get rid of the fake Sombra, though. Even if he’s missing out on the magic of one of the four canon princesses, he’ll still be extremely dangerous. Nothing I wouldn’t be able to handle, though, if only some  _ jackass _ hadn’t boxed up my power.”

“It was for your own good, you stupid filly-faker!” Rayner brayed. “And I wasn’t the one who asked for that to happen — I’ve locked you up in the Room with a Moose from  _ Invader Zim  _ or somethin’, even though you’d probably take even  _ that  _ over!”

She rolled her jewel-like eyes at him yet again. “For the time being, we’ll have to make do without my normal abilities. The reason Sombra was destroyed in canon was because the entire Crystal Empire was up against him. There were hundreds of them, but only two of us.”

“The abilities you had as a Sue-wraith, a Replacement, or what have you, were  _ not _ normal by any stretch of the imagination. But you’re right, he’s already powerful enough even  _ without  _ the princesses’ magic.”

The Sue, who was observing the Replacement and Twilight in secret, was joined by the rest of the Mane Cast, who quickly rushed her away.

“We’ll need to get to the next chapter and follow the Sue,” said E.V.L., scanning the Words as Pegasusi dove into her mane. “This chapter involves some reminiscing about the  _ Equestria Girls _ sub-continuum and the possibility of the Sue using magic in her own right. The next one continues that discussion — but there’s something at the end that you might want to see.”

“Oh Celestia, if it’s the Sue sproutin’ ears and a tail like the human analogs of the Mane Cast in the first  _ Equestria Girls _ movie, I’m gonna rip her throat out right then and there. And yours too.”

“...Or not. But we’ll still have to watch it. No more Mrs. Nice Unicorn for you, buster!”

“Why you  _ little — ! _ ” But before he could continue, E.V.L. had trapped him in the magic cage again and portaled them to near the end of the next chapter.

> **I looked down at my amulet and focused hard on it, harder than I'd ever focused on anything before. I thought about Twilight and how much I longed to save her. I thought about the rest of the Mane Six, how much magic they could produce together. I thought about finding the Elements of Harmony one by one in the river, and Twilight telling me what they really were. I thought of Sombra's attack and Twilight's sacrifice to save me.**
> 
> **And as I did, I felt myself growing lighter. I looked down and realized I was engulfed in a cloud of magic that shone the colors of all six Elements.**
> 
> **I panicked and immediately dropped back to the floor. As the Mane Six stared I mentally scolded myself. "Don't fight it," I whispered. "Surrender." I tried again.**
> 
> **And this time something else happened.**
> 
> **I levitated again in that shimmering cloud, and felt my body warm with the ebb and flow of the alicorn magic. Something tingled on my scalp—I reached up and felt a pair of velvety ears. I rapidly began to spin in the air as my hair lengthened almost to the floor in a long ponytail—and a pair of magnificent shimmering wings unfurled from my back.**
> 
> **The magic completed, I settled back on the floor and tried to collect my thoughts.**
> 
> **Had I just turned—anthro?**

Indeed, the crash test dummy had sprouted glittering wings, furry ears, and a ponytail that reached the floor. Rayner started gnawing the bars of the magic cage again.

“Careful, you’ll lose a tooth,” his partner snarked, ignoring the mini-Discord even as he twisted the strands of her mane into complicated knots and braids.

“But… But she just…”

“Yeah, I know. How soon is it going to be before she sprouts a horn?”

“Can we get to the next chapter before I start wondering whether I can break out of this thing?! We have to press charges before killing this stupid Sue!”

“Fair enough. We’ll have to go to the second half of the chapter, though. The first half is just the Sue trying to fly on her own power.”

“Who’s willing to bet that she’ll start cheatin’ a little and usin’ her magic to fly?” Rayner asked no one in particular as E.V.L. opened another portal. “I mean, I’ll give her credit for not being able to fly  _ immediately _ , but still…”

> **I noticed the clock and was surprised to see what time it was. It was almost nine o'clock—high time for the sun to have set and the moon to be shining down on Equestria. But almost immediately I remembered. Celestia and Luna had given their magic to Twilight, and Twilight had given it to me. The magic that set the sun and raised the moon was now in the necklace I was wearing.**
> 
> **For a moment I wondered if I could do it—if I could raise the moon instead of Princess Luna. Immediately I rejected the idea. Twilight had been embarrassed as she told me how badly she had done before—and she was an alicorn, gifted with her own magic as well as the other princesses'. I had nothing. Raising the moon on my own would be a horrible idea.**
> 
> **A sudden distant thunderclap from the direction of Canterlot got my attention. I looked to the horizon and absolutely panicked. Canterlot was engulfed in the same cloud that had trapped Twilight and I inside the palace earlier. Sombra's power was growing. In a matter of hours, his clouds could cover all of Equestria.**

“Interesting that she recognizes her limitations,” said E.V.L. “At least initially.”

“The keyword being ‘initially’, Rayner grumbled from inside the cage. “It’s probably not gonna be like that for long.”

Sure enough, the Sue decided to leave the Mane Cast and rescue Twilight herself. She opened the window and, after convincing herself that she wasn’t a coward, jumped out.

The agents frantically rushed over to the window, expecting to see a glittery grease stain and a broken dummy. Instead, they were treated to the sight of the Sue finally getting the hang of flying. She celebrated for a couple of lines of narration, and then flew off to find Twilight, her winged form vanishing into the distance.

Which wouldn’t have been too extraordinary, relatively speaking, if it weren’t for the last two lines of the chapter.

> **What I didn't know at the time, though, was that my anger had pulled some of the magic out of the amulet. The magic that was allowing me to fly was a product of impure rage.**
> 
> **Simply put, I was flying with dark magic.**

E.V.L., Rayner, and Pegasusi all watched the crash-test dummy become a distant speck in the night sky, their mouths open in stark horror. As the chapter ended, the agents looked at each other with grim expressions as they realized what the Sue’s use of dark magic implied.

“Would now be a good time to say, ‘Oh, horse-apples’?” asked E.V.L.

Rayner flicked his tail at an imaginary fly. “Yep. Definitely.”

“Right, then. ‘Oh, horse-apples’ it is.”

 

* * *

 

**Act Three**

Soundtrack:

  * [Evening Star — “A Dying World”](http://youtu.be/3Jf20-Cnjn0)
  * [KingSpartaX37 — [MLP FiM] King Sombra Boss Battle Theme](http://youtu.be/jfmhOKpQwuM)



 

After skipping past a meeting with a certain memetic gray pegasus pony, during which the Sue told her to warn everyone else that Sombra was returning, the agents returned to Canterlot, where the dark clouds seemed to have become a dark magic of some kind, rather than the mere shadows that had threatened the Crystal Empire in the start of Season 3.

Upon entering the premises, the agents noticed that a new building had been erected not far from the palace. As the agents drew nearer, they saw  **a very new building erected not far from the Canterlot Palace. This building was built out of brick—solid black brick, seemingly the solid form of the cloud I was now flying in.**

“That must be where Not!Sombra is,” said E.V.L.

“Howd’ya know?” Rayner snarled at her. “Knowin’ him, he could be anywhere by now.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I just know.”

Indeed, the Sue decided to enter the building. Rayner let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like “Sue logic” as they continued following her.

> **I slipped through the door (surprisingly, no locks or guards prevented me)** [“You’d think Sombra would have been smart enough to at least lock the place up!” Rayner fumed.] **and found myself looking at another brick wall with a barred door in the front and center. I could hear scuffling coming from inside.**
> 
> The agents and the Sue  **peered between the bars cautiously. What** they **saw made** them **want to grab King Sombra by the throat.**
> 
> **A circle of shadow ponies were kicking and punching someone in the center. I heard cries of pain and my stomach tightened.**
> 
> **Twilight.**

The agents watched as Not!Sombra called off the ‘shadow ponies’ and started beating Twilight both verbally and physically, claiming that she had betrayed the rest of her friends. The Sue, meanwhile, had grown increasingly desperate and, as Not!Sombra prepared to deliver the deathblow, she suddenly teleported through the door and reappeared between them.

“I know she hasn’t grown a horn yet, but that is  _ definitely _ not something any pegasus is capable of,” E.V.L. mused aloud.

“I don’t know whether to kill the Sue, the Replacement, or my own buckin’ partner!” Rayner snorted. “On the one hoof, this fake Sombra is even more despicable than the one that showed up in canon, but on the other hoof, that Sue isn’t any better!”

“I would definitely worry more about the fake Sombra,” said E.V.L. “Sure, the Sue’s got her problems, but at least she isn’t openly threatening the canon the way Not!Sombra is.”

That was the metaphorical final straw. As Not!Sombra made his exit, leaving the Sue to comfort Twilight, Rayner grabbed his partner by the tail and flew her out of the building. Before he could toss her, both the agents and the mini tasted a cloyingly sweet flavor, and he dropped her as he flew over the castle courtyard.

“Cliche sweetness?” E.V.L. grimaced. “Okay,  _ that’s _ original.”

Rayner rubbed the taste of fake sugar off of his tongue, dropping down to face her. His bandaged back leg still stung as he landed, but he knew he would recover — after all, the canonical Rainbow Dash had once walked off a broken wing within less than a day.

“Were you even payin’ attention throughout this mission?!” he spat at her. “I appreciate that you acknowledge the fake Sombra as a threat — Even if he’s  _ supposed  _ to be a villain, he’s being written incorrectly, and that’s never a good thing! — but  _ why _ aren’t you openly motivated to get rid of Tara as well?! I mean, you may be right about the Sue being, oh, not  _ openly  _ dangerous. Of  _ course _ she isn’t some bigoted, murderous jackass from the depths of Hell like  _ you  _ once were! But at the end of the day, the problems with both of them can be all traced down to the  _ exact same buckin’ thing! _ ”

“Oh, so Tara  _ is _ a threat?” asked E.V.L., her voice betraying obvious doubt.

“Pffft, are you kiddin’?!” Rayner scoffed. “Of  _ course  _ she is! She’s not a villain, sure, but a heroic character can be just as hard to write well! The problem with both Tara and the replacement of Sombra is that they’re both written with an author-centric morality in mind. The Sue is portrayed as a figure of incorruptible purity and goodness and anyone who disagrees with her, be it a canonical villain or someone who would normally be friends with her love interest — sorry,  _ Lust Object —  _ has the bad parts of their personality exaggerated to  _ ridiculous _ levels!”

“How is that a bad thing?”

“How is that a bad thing?!” he echoed. “ _ How is that a bad thing?! The Mary Sue makes the entire universe revolve around her!  _ And that’s really bad news for the canonical characters!”

“Okay, I  _ get _ that already. But why not just take away everything badly written about her and return her to her home world? We could write out her magic powers, give her a new name, properly define her appearance, and so on. That could work, right?”

“No. It.  _ Won’t. _ ”

“How can you say that? Do you have a problem with Suvian characters, Rayner?”

“For your information, Evangeline von Lilith,  _ I _ have a problem with  _ you!  _ At least  _ I  _ know what’s important for the good of this continuum, while you only care about yourself! Do you even  _ understand  _ what we go through every day, or are you just playin’ along so you can run off, break out of your imprisonment, and return to being a buckin’ Mary Sue?!”

“I am  _ not _ a Mary Sue. I’m just special.”

“No. You’re.  _ NOT! _ You have no respect for me, no respect for the Duty… You know what, buck it, you have no respect for  _ anythin’ at all! _ I would rather take a bath in undiluted glitter than sit through one more minute of you being such an applebuckin’  _ snob! _ ”

“You know what?!” E.V.L. hissed, levitating the RA out of Rayner’s saddlebag. “If you’re going to be so stubborn and insulting all the time, I might as well finish this mission myself. You are nothing but a useless nuisance to me, the gadfly to my Pegasus.”

With a wordless whinny of anger, Rayner whirled and lashed out at her with his back hooves. She ducked just in time and turned to gallop away.

“GET BACK HERE!” he cried. “I’ll show  _ you  _ how to be a gadfly! That’s  _ my  _ Sue, and if there’s anyone who’s supposed to kill her, it’s  _ me! _ ”

She stopped and whipped round to face him, her mane suddenly blazing the way Twilight’s did in ‘Feeling Pinkie Keen’.

“This is  _ my _ job now, Rayner,” she snarled. “We may be connected by blood, and what I am doing may risk harm to both of us, but at least we may both have a chance to survive. If you try to do this yourself, you’ll leave me behind, we will fail the mission, and then the Sunflower will have  _ both _ of our heads. Tell me this, Rayner… which is the worse option?”

He couldn’t respond to her. As irresponsible and selfish as E.V.L. was, he could tell that she was right this time. Her mane cooled down, drooping back over herself, and she motioned for Pegasusi to follow her. Wisely, she did not stay long enough to gloat, instead turning and galloping away, with the mini-Discord hanging onto both her and the RA.

The pegasus agent slumped to the ground, pressing both front hooves to his head. What had he gotten himself into?

 

*****

 

Rayner didn’t move from the palace grounds for several chapters, during which he felt too weak to even move, let alone kill the Sue, and instead lay on his back and watched the Words go by in the same way that one would watch clouds in the sky. The Sue escaped from the dungeon, using a song from the second  _ Equestria Girls _ movie to counter Not!Sombra’s dark magic. She was transported to Twilight’s library, where she happened upon the same book from earlier and found some information about the fifth and (supposedly) final alicorn princess.

In the following chapter, the other ponies caught up with the Sue, at which point she told them about where Twilight was and began a discussion with them about what they were supposed to do. And the chapter after  _ that _ described the Sue analyzing the prophecy again, at the same time thinking about the seventh element, Armonia. And as Rayner suspected, she realized that the fifth alicorn princess was  _ named  _ Armonia.

The next chapter detailed Tara taking the Mane Cast back to Canterlot. The Sue was coming back. The chance to get rid of her and restore canon was coming, but he would have to act fast, before the fifth alicorn came to life and distorted it even further.

In fact, he would have struck down the Sue much earlier, if it weren’t for one small problem. He had given up.

E.V.L.’s running off on him had been understandable, now that he thought of it. She had tried to kill him just the previous day, so it was no surprise that he couldn’t bring himself to trust her, or anyone else like her for that matter. Even in chains, she was a Sue. Flat, one-dimensional, and poorly written… Or was she? Sure, she hadn’t been respectful towards him, but she was astute, patient, and made good observations about the canon. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t be so Suvian after all, if only someone gave her the proper advice.

But Rayner certainly wasn’t that someone. The basic facts remained: she was selfish, prideful, and ignorant. The negatives outweighed the positives by a significant margin, and that infuriated him to no end. All the same, he needed to at least find a way back to HQ, assuming that whatever E.V.L. was doing had been successful.

He rolled over and stood up, brushing his mane, but felt the shooting pain in his bandaged leg, and collapsed again. She was gone, and she had taken the RA with her as well. The only way out was for her to find him… if their paths could ever cross again.

 

*****

 

> **The truth was, I was too terrified to go back. The others had placed so much confidence in me. After all, I was carrying all of Equestria's alicorn magic. Hadn't some of it even turned me part pony? Hadn't I been able to use small amounts of the magic? Hadn't I been the one who found Twilight? Didn't I understand the prophecy?**
> 
> **But I knew better. I was just a scared teenage girl who didn't know the first thing about Equestria or its magic.**
> 
> **I ran through the dark mist-covered streets of Canterlot and collapsed sobbing against an alley wall. Why me? Why had I been the one to create such a horrible situation for Twilight and the other princesses?**
> 
> **Dark laughter got my attention. Wiping my tears, I looked up and found myself face to horn with King Sombra himself in his shadow form.**
> 
> **I looked down and closed my eyes. "Go ahead. Do your worst."**
> 
> **Changing into his normal unicorn form, Sombra chuckled darkly. "Why? What haven't you done already?"**

“Quite a lot, actually,” said a voice behind him. Not!Sombra turned, and gasped in shock.

A glorious alicorn stood before the two of them, her mane flowing and sparkling with the colors of the Elements of Harmony. Her coat was silver, gold, and white all at once, just like in the picture from earlier — she herself had mentally labeled the resultant combination “gildver” for future reference. Baby-pink horseshoes covered her hooves, and the six-sectioned cloud of her cutie mark had a broken sword in the center.

Sombra staggered back, his green eyes wide with disbelief. “The fifth alicorn…” he hissed.

“...has come to punish you for your sins,” she replied with a voice like a spring breeze blowing against a field of blooming flowers, her face breaking into a triumphant grin. “King Sombra, by order of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, you are convicted of being a Character Replacement on account of the following charges: Replacing the character of King Sombra, having and abusing at least one uncanonical ability, creating an uncanonical species, namely ‘shadow ponies’, abusing the living shit out of a canonical character, namely Twilight Sparkle, for the purpose of being evil — Hell, just  _ being generically evil _ counts as a charge. The canonical Sombra at least had his reasons for threatening the Crystal Empire in the series, that being desire for power and possible prevention of an uprising on the part of the Crystal Ponies.”

“Isn’t a need for power already a valid reason for my actions?” Sombra snarled.

_ Come on,  _ E.V.L. thought to herself as she paused for breath.  _ You’ve gotten this far. What are you going to do now? _

“An understandable sentiment, but that does  _ not  _ excuse beating Twilight half to death,” she snorted. “Anyway, additional charges include returning to power an entire two seasons after your supposed demise. This would be somewhat excusable because the status of the canonical Sombra after the return of the Crystal Heart has remained unclear, but that does not necessarily mean anything as far as the question of whether he is still alive is concerned. All in all, your crimes are punishable by death, and  _ this _ time, you shall  _ stay _ dead. And as for Tara… Let’s just say that I’ll deal with  _ her  _ after I’m done with  _ you. _ ”

“I enjoy a challenge,  _ Princess Armonia, _ ” Sombra smiled darkly. “I have enough power to take you down without even  _ trying _ .”

“Not enough,” E.V.L. said fiercely. Her horn started glowing green as she channeled her power, her wings beating, her hooves leaving the ground. “I shall call upon the Elements of Harmony to put an end to you once and for all — Honesty, Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Loyalty, Magic… and the final Element,  _ Harmony itself! _ ”

_ Rayner, where are you?!  _ she thought desperately as the respective colors of light coalesced into a ball of energy at the tip of her horn.  _ The Sue is wide open and Not!Sombra is distracted! Oh well, here goes nothing. _

But it was clear that she wasn’t strong enough to deal with this alone. She hadn’t obtained enough power, and her bindings had weakened her too much. There was no time to waste — she aimed her horn at the fake Sombra, and fired a beam of searing white light.

With a sinister grin, he lowered his horn and caught the beam. To him, it felt even weaker than the feeblest effort of any of the princesses, and he absorbed it with ease.

Which left E.V.L. completely exhausted. Unable to keep her disguise up, she tumbled to the ground with the grace of a freshly plucked turkey, half the size of the form she once was and with her gildver coat replaced by chitinous armor. Not!Sombra smiled even wider.

“Is that the best the fifth alicorn can come up with?” he laughed. “I expected power beyond comparison, and not a mere  _ imposter!  _ If this is what you want, however, then so be it.  _ My turn. _ ”

E.V.L. stood up weakly, her compound eyes glaring at the replacement in defiance as he gathered a ball of dark energy at the tip of his own horn. Within seconds, he lowered it, taking aim directly at her face.

Wishing she could shed a Single Tear, she leaped to the side just as Not!Sombra fired a beam of ebony and crimson destruction with the force of a satellite-mounted laser cannon.

The resultant explosion turned half the town into smoking rubble. Dark crystals sprouted from everything his magic touched, but the changeling was nowhere to be seen. In his eyes, she was probably nothing but ashes by now.

Sombra laughed in triumph, turning back to Tara. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Your alicorn magic.”

“What about it?” Tara asked in a mixture of horror and anger.

> **"You are the one who is distorting the magic in your necklace," Sombra scoffed. At** [her] **shocked expression he laughed. "Yes, I know. Twilight told me about hiding the magic in there to try and make me feel defeated. Clearly she failed miserably." He walked slowly around** [her] **. "I could turn you into a minion of mine in the blink of an eye if I desired. But why bother? Your own anger and fear is producing more dark magic inside you than I had ever dreamed of putting in the new alicorn princess." And in a brief burst of dark magic, he was gone.**

 

*****

 

“Damn it all!” Rayner swore as he galloped through the streets of Canterlot as fast as he could, heading towards the source of the explosion without even caring about the aching pain screaming in every pore in his body. “Damn you, E.V.L., damn you Not!Sombra, damn you Tara, damn you badfic, damn you Sunflower Official,  _ damn you PPC! _ ”

The panic he was feeling overrode the need to drag himself to Medical — he hadn’t felt this much fear for the life of someone else since he had lost his old partner. Back then, Nicholas had been the only one who really mattered to him. Did E.V.L. really deserve to hold a similar position?

No, she didn’t. Even if the Flowers got rid of her Suvian traits, she just wasn’t his type. And she certainly wasn’t a friend to him. No way.

In the midst of his inner monologue, he saw a flash of something glittery flying up into the dark clouds above him. He slowed his pace to a halt, watching as the Sue vanished from view, and stared after her, watching the Words carefully as she tried to escape. Thinking happy, friendly thoughts was working wonders against the dark magic, as predicted, but her fear and anger also made things go south. Apparently, she was  **in control of the most powerful thing in Equestria** now, but just barely.

He knew he had to set things right, but he needed to find his partner. But where was she? All around him, there was nothing but dark crystals and smoldering debris.

His frantic search was interrupted by a little  _ poof _ of something teleporting onto his back. Within a few moments, said something had twisted three locks of his mullet into a strand of multicolored rope.

“P-Pegasusi! Cadence!” Rayner cried as the other mini-Discord floated into view. “But… Where’s E.V.L.?”

The first mini-Discord leaped off his back and floated over to a pile of scattered, crystal-covered timbers, pointing towards a gap amongst them. Rayner immediately galloped up to it, noticing that it seemed to be covering something. Reaching into the pile with both hooves, he tossed out one broken log, then another, before pulling out a very out-of-place changeling.

She was hurt. Very, very hurt. But when Rayner looked closer, he could see her plated chest expanding and contracting ever-so-slightly, an indicator that she was still breathing. Whatever had tried to atomize her, she’d had the sense to jump out of the way, and had most likely been caught in the aftershock without taking the blast directly.

The pegasus pony immediately brought his hooves down upon her chest; not enough to hurt her even more, but hopefully enough to jolt her vitals. A few rounds of this later, he was prepared to try the “breathe into the mouth” approach, but he didn’t have to. She coughed out a cloud of dust, and opened all of her eyes.

“Okay,” E.V.L. wheezed, looking as though she’d met the wrong side of a bus-sized shoe. “That didn’t work  _ at all. _ ”

“You buckin’  _ idiot! _ ” Rayner yelled with a mixture of rage and relief. “You’re not supposed to directly engage the Sue! Those things are so overpowered that defeating them normally is impossible!”

“I was going to leave Tara for when I was done,” she replied dryly. “It was the fake Sombra I was after, but I underestimated him a little.”

Rayner glared down at her.

“Okay, a  _ lot _ ,” she corrected herself. “But that’s not the point.”

“You owe me an explanation,” Rayner snorted. “What did you do, exactly, and what was with that town-shatterin’ kaboom I heard twenty minutes ago?!”

“After you broke down and told me to leave,” she explained, “I decided to try and finish the Duty for you. It was only fair that I make up for being disrespectful, and all, but apparently, I ended up going into a fight I couldn’t win.”

He facehooved yet again. “Look, E.V.L…. I can see why you wanted to do that for me, and I’d give you a gold star for effort if I had any, but you’re goin’ about this the wrong way. Even if you did understand the truth and my feelings about this mess — and Celestia be damned if you  _ did _ — when it comes to defeatin’ Suvian characters, you still  _ think _ like a Sue yourself. You can’t expect to defeat Not!Sombra in magical combat just because you feel entitled to killin’ the badfic!”

“I know,” E.V.L. admitted. “That was my first mistake. The second was thinking that you would automatically come in to bail me out once I realized what I’d gotten myself into. None of my bluffing could even  _ phase _ that bastard. And while I’m on this topic, where  _ were _ you, anyway? I almost  _ died _ back there.”

“Not giving a flying feather,” Rayner said harshly. “Gallopin’ on a broken leg for who knows how long and then arguin’ with you took a serious toll. But when I heard that explosion and suddenly felt pain in places I never thought could hurt, I realized that somethin’ bad had happened to you. Life-blood connection, remember?”

“About time somebody considered it useful. But did you  _ seriously _ have to abandon me? You could have been helpful back there.”

“By helpful, did you mean as a  _ tool _ for your sick whims?” he snapped. “You’d have thrown me under the carriage when you got the chance! So now you know what it feels like to fly solo.”

“You’re still not going to kill me, aren’t you?” she asked coolly, whipping her tail as though beckoning a challenge.

“I wish I could,” he grumbled. “But as the sayin’ goes, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ We may not be friends, but we’re in this together, whether we like it or not. So let’s just get this mission  _ done _ already. We can go at each other’s throats when we’re done.”

E.V.L.’s planned response died in her throat as the Words suddenly interrupted. Cadance had just declared that Tara  _ was _ Armonia.

She sighed instead, and glowered at him venomously. “Fair enough. I’m already damned as it is. Let’s go.”

Skipping over the Author’s Note, the agents portaled to halfway to Chapter 18, the minis stashed in Rayner’s saddlebag and the charge list at hand. “You did hear what Cadance said too, didn’t you?”

“Oh, Hell yeah,” Rayner agreed. “As soon as she lands, we move in. Got it?”

The disguised ex-ficubus bared her fangs with a mirthless grin. “Lead the way, pony boy.”

> **"Wait! Your Highnesses! I don't even know where you're hiding! Wait, please!"**
> 
> **But it was no use. The alicorn magic had ceased. All was silent again.**
> 
> **I slowly lowered myself to the ground and folded in my wings. Had I been dreaming?**
> 
> **Was I really the final alicorn?**

Before she could come up with an answer to that question, a pegasus stallion swooped in out of nowhere and bucked her in the head. She toppled to the ground, clutching her nose with both hands, as said pegasus landed in front of her.

“Well, that was easy,” said a changeling as it flew in to join him, levitating a notebook with green magic. A tiny draconequus clung to the back of her neck.

“The secret to a good assassination is the element of surprise,” Rayner replied. “Now, follow my lead. Tara, put your hands in the air for us. We haven’t got all day.”

She did so immediately, but as she got to her knees, a trickle of glittery pink substance flowed from her nostril.

His pink eyes widening, Rayner covered his snout frantically with one forehoof, his whole body trembling as his bloodlust started kicking in. “On second thought, I think I’ve only got less than a minute, so I’ll make this quick. Tara Swift, by order of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, you are convicted of being a Mary Sue on account of the following charges: using a tragic incident, namely the destruction of your home, as an excuse for a plot device, transportin’ the Elements of Harmony into another continuum entirely, creatin’ an uncanonical time distortion, failin’ to properly define your appearance, endin’ up in Equestria via contrived clumsiness, havin’ an uncreative name, makin’ the princesses entrust you of all people with their precious magic, usin’ said magic to gain anthropomorphic pony traits, creatin’ at least two mini-Discords, namely Pegasusi and Cadence, replacin’ the character of King Sombra, allowin’ Twilight Sparkle to suffer from intolerable abuse on multiple levels, usin’ dark magic without proper justification, and don’t even get me buckin’ started on completely overturnin’ the canon with an extravagant alicorn princess of your own creation — which happens to be the same identity as you, by the way! — and a completely made-up and terribly written prophecy about a seventh Element of Harmony to top it all off!”

“B-but…” Tara whimpered, trying to staunch the flow of glittery blood from her nose. “The seventh Element is real!... It’s…”

“No. It’s not,” said E.V.L., magically ripping the necklace off of the Sue. “And with that, we bid you a not-so-warm welcome to Cocytus. Don’t enjoy your stay.”

With that, she bade her partner to uncover his snout, at which he inhaled deeply through his nostrils, bared his razor-sharp teeth… and promptly launched himself at her with a shriek of abject rage.

The last thing Tara Swift ever heard was her own scream of absolute terror.

 

*****

 

King Not!Sombra paced around the space he had teleported into, which was decked out with dark crystals and filled with dark smoke. He was, no doubt, waiting for the next time he would be called forth to bring his cold fury down upon those goody-two-hooves who had once wielded the Elements of Harmony, not to mention that winged scumbag who was now corrupting the very magic he had sought for so long. Useless pile of trash, that one. Why bother getting rid of her?

His brooding was interrupted by a ring of blue light opening up behind him. Two people stumbled through, a chained female demon and a rainbow-haired human male.

“Yeuccch, I had no idea the crash test dummy aftertaste lingered for that long,” Rayner grumbled, wiping said flavor off his tongue with a finger. “Looks like I’ll have to pay for repairs, or otherwise just get a new one. Anyway, here comes the hard part. Like I said earlier, try not to think like a Sue for like what, five minutes?”

“Got it,” E.V.L. said with her usual detachment. “About time we did this — if they mention a desert in the Hell of Dante’s  _ Inferno _ , I’m as parched as anyone lost in it. Shall we?”

“Sure. King Sombra,” he said, turning to the Replacement. “By order of — ”

“I actually pressed the charges earlier,” E.V.L. cut in. “Well, most of them, anyway, right before he tried to blast me to smithereens. Are there any I’ve missed?”

“Just this one,” said Rayner. “Not!Sombra, you are additionally charged with attemptin’ to kill a PPC agent — multiple agents, in fact! Which is why we are going to put an end to you once and for all!”

“Try me,” Sombra laughed menacingly. “I could wipe you both out of existence in an instant. It wouldn’t be too hard. My shadowy warriors, get rid of them!”

“Hold them off!” Rayner called out as a half-dozen shadow ponies charged towards them. “I’ve got this!”

She nodded, concentrating as hard as she could. A dozen shadowy tendrils rose from her shadow, tipped with spear-like points, and lashed out at the shadow ponies. They ducked and weaved around them, attempting to get to her, but she was surprisingly quick. Launching herself over one like a Cretan bull-leaper, she rolled gracefully across its back. A moment later a shadow tendril speared its underbelly, lifting it into the air, before hurling it into two more. Slicing two more shadow ponies with her tail, she kicked into a spinning headstand, knocking away several more.

But more and more shadow ponies started emerging from Not!Sombra’s dark mist. Within seconds, they had her pinned to the ground. One of them pulled her head off with its jaws and tossed it towards her enemy. Even in chains she was capable of holding her own, but the replacement was unbound and driven by the urge to completely annihilate her. Rayner had been right — there was no way she could win in direct combat against him, and he knew it too as he raised his hoof over her head, ready to crush it to bits.

Neither Sombra nor E.V.L. made the decisive blow, however.

There was the sickening  _ crack _ of bone being snapped, and Not!Sombra gasped in surprise and pain as he felt his horn leave his forehead. Dark magic immediately started pouring out of the socket, transforming into pure, colorful bursts of light. Above him, a wave of blue light opened up, sucking the purified magic into itself and sending it back to its rightful owners throughout Equestria.

By the time the display had concluded, Not!Sombra had sunk to all four of his knees, his shadow ponies and dark crystals crumbling into nothingness. Before him, E.V.L.’s headless torso stood up, and was joined by Rayner, who now held the Replacement’s broken horn in his hand. With the Sue’s power gone, it hadn’t taken him as much effort as he’d expected to wrench it clean off.

“To paraphrase what a famous man once said,” the human pegasus said fiercely, “‘Taste the rainbow, applebucker.’”

“W-what?!” Not!Sombra cried out in shock. “B-but… how?!”

“You know, considering that you’ve spent so much time bolstering your magical strength, you really should stop and think about whether you’re forgetting something. Like, oh, the fact that your focus on your magic prevents you from thinking about defending yourself physically. Or for that matter, your focus on a single target, leaving you vulnerable to someone else getting the jump on you.”

Not!Sombra had no response to that.

“Of course,” Rayner continued, “I’ve already had my fill of horrendously,  _ despicably _ messed-up characterization today. _ However _ …” He nodded to E.V.L.’s torso. “My partner would beg to differ.”

“B-but… We’ve never met!” Not!Sombra hedged frantically, trying to pick up his horn with his hooves.

“We actually  _ have _ ,” said E.V.L.’s severed head, making him jump back in fright. “You may also know me as…  _ Princess Armonia. _ Though to be fair, the fact that you tried to vaporize me made for an awful first impression.”

Not!Sombra made the connection in that instant, but his opponent was already doing her lethal work, her influence rendering him paralyzed with uncharacteristic fear. Pegasusi stuck his head out of Rayner’s bag and made a side-whistling noise as his partner’s severed head floated up from the ground, coming nose to snout with Not!Sombra.

The bound ex-ficubus grinned evilly, exposing inch-long fangs, and whispered two words into his ear, two words that made Not!Sombra whimper in absolute terror.

“ _ My turn. _ ”

With that, E.V.L. sank her fangs into his throat, and twisted his neck with one sickening  _ snap _ . The horrid imposter went limp immediately, and his flesh began to wither a moment later, the glow in his eyes still fading.

Rayner wisely looked away as his partner continued feeding. Where did she  _ put _ all that glitter, anyway?

“See?  _ This _ is why the Flowers tied you up!” the humanized pegasus said angrily, picking up said Not!Sombra’s severed horn and shoving it into his bag.

“At least I still get to suck people dry,” she pointed out in a matter-of-fact tone, putting her head back on before trying to lift Not!Sombra’s body. “Now, where do we put this?”

Rayner opened up a portal behind her, and what sounded like three enormous creatures growled ferociously. E.V.L. felt their breath blow against her smoky hair, which was now a vivid shade of crimson from her recent meal.

“Oh, Cerberuuuuus~,” her partner called out in a singsong voice. “I have a treat for you! Now, sit!”

E.V.L. looked around just in time to see the huge, black, three-headed dog drop onto its haunches.

“Now, roll over!” Rayner ordered. Cerberus rolled over onto his back.

“Good boooooy!” he cooed, reaching through the portal and scratching the central head’s muzzle. “Here ya go, it’s all yours!”

For a half-second, E.V.L. expected him to toss her at the huge hellhound, but mercifully, he instead took Not!Sombra’s body from her and heaved it through the portal. He closed the portal just as the heads of the guardian of Tartarus began fighting over the carcass.

“For a moment, you had me concerned,” E.V.L. deadpanned, still looking at where the portal had been.

“You should at least thank me for letting you avenge your near-death experience earlier. Anyway, I’m gonna clean up. The SO expects us back in his office for a face-to-bloom report, so I might as well send you there first.”

“Will he still complain about the screw-up with the fake Sombra?” E.V.L. asked. “I will admit that it was almost entirely my fault.”

“Which is precisely the point!” Rayner shouted angrily, opening up another portal. “Now, in you go!”

He shoved her through, leaving her at the mercy of the Sunflower, and set up another portal back to Canterlot for his own use, disguise included.

 

*****

 

Without the influence of Not!Sombra, Twilight Sparkle was no longer imprisoned. She was hurt, however. The sun shone down freely upon her as she lay there, broken and still bleeding. It was not until a pegasus pony appeared before her that she looked up weakly.

“W-what? What h-happened?”

“You’re safe now, your Highness,” said Rayner, helping her to her hooves. “Sombra is gone. Tara lost her life fighting him, but she died for a good cause. Now, if you could just head this way…”

Twilight looked devastated, but she could not argue. “…Where do you want me to go?”

“The hospital,” Rayner said with a dry smile. “Your injuries will be taken care of, and after that, you’ll be sent to FicPsych for counseling. I’m so sorry about what happened to you, your Highness. I wish I could have been there sooner.”

“…Is there anyone else with you?” she asked.

“I do have a partner, but she’s neuralyzin’ the rest of your friends and restoring the magic to the princesses… I hope. Anyway, right this way, please…”

She nodded before heading through the portal to Medical. Rayner then opened up a portal to the palace proper to take care of the others.

It took about ten minutes to convince the princesses and the rest of the Mane Cast that Sombra was dead and that they could have their magic back but ultimately, despite their hesitation, Cadance was the first to relent. Rayner had to spend another half-hour trying to find the right magic releasing spell from the library, and only managed to find it via a random glance while stopping to clean up the glittery puddle of sick that had been left upon the floor earlier. Ultimately, however, the princesses and the canon were properly restored.

“Thank you,” Celestia said to him. “Thanks to you, Sombra is no more, and our kingdom is safe once again.”

“Happy to help, your Highness,” Rayner said, bowing with his front legs to the floor. “Now, one more thing. Everypony, look this way…”

He held up the neuralyzer with his right wing, and closed his eyes as the thing went off.  _ FLASH! _

“In general: You never encountered anyone named Tara Swift, there are six Elements of Harmony, there is no fifth alicorn princess, and you never met an imposter of King Sombra. To the Mane Cast: You are the friends of Princess Twilight Sparkle, and you will continue to go about your normal lives, learning new things about friendship every day. To the Princesses: You will continue to rule the kingdom of Equestria with justice, wisdom, and fairness, and you will continue to guide Twilight Sparkle on her journey as a princess herself. On behalf of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, thank you for your understanding, and have a great day!”

With that, he bowed again, and left the castle and the fic once and for all.

 

* * *

 

**Post-Mission**

 

Stepping through the portal and into the Sunflower’s office, Rayner waved at the security dandelions and casually walked up to E.V.L. and the Sunflower himself. “Well, mission accomplished!” he said cheerfully.

_ I noticed _ , the Sunflower replied in his telepathic voice.  _ You handled the required tasks fairly well in spite of your condition, I see. I must however note that your partner was much less compliant, which means her treatment was apparently not as effective as we had hoped. She will have to return to FicPsych post-haste. _

“How exactly?” he asked. “Are you referring to her runnin’ off on me after complainin’ about me or nearly gettin’ both of us killed by confrontin’ that Replacement head-on?”

_ Both. She clearly has no respect for you or the PPC, and even if she made a conscious effort to finish the Duty, she is still a threat. _

“Nice job, Rayner,” the bound Sue-wraith snarled at him.

“Like I said, it’s for your own good,” he replied harshly. “Youd’ve gladly slain me otherwise!”

_ Which is why we cannot have her roaming freely about our headquarters. Until she learns to respect and care for her fellow agents, she must be confined between missions. _

He flashed her a smile that screamed, “You are  _ so _ busted.”

_ However,  _ the Sunflower added,  _ I have  _ also  _ requested FicPsych to set up a telepathic connection between the two of you which will be active at all times, so that you two can maintain contact with one another when separated. _

“ _ WHAT?! _ ” both of them shouted simultaneously.

_ It will be effective post-haste. You will be redirected to FicPsych immediately upon your release from Medical, and I expect E.V.L. to return to my office as soon as you two are finished. _

E.V.L.’s head slid off of her neck stump and hit the Generic Floor with a  _ thunk.  _ She was too horrified to even bother picking it up.

“B-but…” Rayner started. “She’s a… She…”

_ I know what you wish to say. To you, she is a murderer, a witch, a monster, and above all, a Sue. You may be right about some things, but not all of them. Dangerous as she is, she has potential. And in contrast to what you may think, she may not be truly Suvian. _

Both of them looked at each other, then back to the Sunflower.

“Go on,” said E.V.L.

_ There were many, many things that your author got wrong. Your incorrect beliefs, your hypocrisy with regards to said beliefs, and especially your bad influence on the timelines you visited. However, instead of simply using your power to drain canons of their resolve to receive attention and affection like a normal Sue would, you actively regarded this as an ability that could be put to dangerous use. Given some adjustment, you would have actually made for an interesting antagonist. _

E.V.L. gave this a few moment’s thought, her severed head still lying on the floor.

“So, what does this mean for me right now?” she asked, planting her foot on her head and rolling it a little under her naked sole. “What if Rayner was right and I  _ was  _ a Sue? Would you have us both executed?”

The Sunflower paused, no doubt thinking carefully about this.  _ To be fair, we would not risk his life to get rid of you — we will need all of the assassins we have at our disposal to ensure that Mary Sues do not overrun the multiverse. We would probably imprison you once and for all. For now, though, your selfishness and lack of judgement are dangers to us and to yourself, so we will have to take corrective measures. _

“Lemme guess,” she hissed. “You wish to lock me up anyway?”

“I’d like that more than anythin’,” Rayner grumbled under his breath.

_ We intend to reform you, forcibly or otherwise. As noted, you have the potential to become a properly developed character in your own right, with a little sage advice. But your current mentality makes you a despicable and careless waste of my precious time, and you will never be an effective agent in such a state. Therefore, you will be taken to Medical to have all of your Suvian traits and your glitter extracted, and henceforth, you will be imprisoned in a pocket dimension outside of the canonical continua until further notice, so that you will not not endanger the lives of others. _

“A hyperspace jail cell is the  _ last _ place I want to stay in,” E.V.L. pleaded as a dandelion put her head back on. “Especially with this bloodthirsty sociopath in my head.”

_ Enough with the complaining, E.V.L. It’s unbecoming. However, your snide reply does remind me of something I need to speak to Rayner about…  _

His head snapped up at the mention of his name. “Oh come  _ on _ , what now?!” he snorted.

_ In light of your past few missions, we have also decided to take action regarding your… disorder. I appreciate that you made a conscious effort to refrain yourself this time — you managed to last the whole mission without succumbing and killing the Sue prematurely — but all the same, your bloodlust is almost as much of a danger as E.V.L.’s current state, especially considering that you two will expect to see only more violence in the future. I still haven’t forgotten what happened two months ago. _

“That was an accident, and we both know that!” Rayner almost shouted.

_ An accident that was partially your fault, Rayner. You will have to consult with Medical about your condition regardless, and possibly go through a few months of physical therapy to bring it under control. I understand your appetite for the flesh of Sues, I really do, but you are an assassin, not an indiscriminate attack horse. _

“Then why don’t you just transfer him to External Security, or whatever they told me about in Medical?” E.V.L. growled. “That way, I’ll never have to see his stupid face ever again.”

_ Neither of you would have learned anything otherwise. The reason for your partnership is so you two can interact with each other and other agents on a level that forges understanding and respect, which is also the reason for the mental connection that will be set up with you two. As it is now, however, it is clear that both of you have too much to learn and too little time, and most of all, your lack of team skills is not a liability we can afford today or any other day. The corrective measures shall be established immediately, and without question. Now, away with you both! And until you two can work together without fighting, do not speak to me of this ever again! _

Neither agent had any answer to that. E.V.L. did spare a very hostile glare at the Sunflower, however, before the dandelion guards led the two of them out of his office and off to Medical.

Rayner Blitzkrieg had never known what it had felt like to hit rock bottom. And apparently, he was not going to find out anytime soon.

 

#  **[END]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to do an MLP mission since joining the PPC, and with a character derived from the MLP continuum, no less! Introducing my first DMS mission, starring some characters that have been sitting on the creative shelf for years! There’s gonna be some continuity with my Floaters team, so no, I won’t abandon it, don’t worry.
> 
> I selected this particular badfic as an example of the classic tropes that one would find in most MLP badfic: a human getting sent to Equestria (I know this one was from the Equestria Girls sub-continuum, but still!), a seventh Element of Harmony, an alicorn OC, long-dead or defeated villains returning for some reason, and so on. It would be the perfect example of what to expect for this sort of thing. The saddest part is that it actually got the characterization for the Mane Six and the princesses mostly correct — the author actually watched the show to get the details down, based on what I’ve read, so props to that. Unfortunately, the Sue still exists, and I don’t think there was much done to make her as balanced as I would’ve wanted, even if the alicorn magic was external. I pretty much decided to cut off my sporking of the fic the moment I read the line indicating that Tara was the fifth alicorn, because by that point she was pretty much beyond saving. The fic itself is still ongoing if you want to know what would’ve happened if the agents hadn’t stepped in.
> 
> This mission took me a bit less than two weeks to write, and that isn’t including the revisions I made from the first draft with PoorCynic’s help (Thanks for that, btw — I guess I shouldn’t rush things so much with these missions!). At any rate, I hope I have a lot of fun writing my future DMS missions as I did with this one! :D
> 
> -SkarmorySilver
> 
> \----------
> 
> Rescued minis:
> 
> \- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (mini-Discord):  
> \-- Pegasusi (adopted by SkarmorySilver)  
> \-- Cadence


End file.
